SLAVERY: 


LETTERS  AND  SPEECHES, 


BY 


HORACE     MANN, 
\* 

THE  FIRST   SECRETARY   OF  THE   MASSACHUSETTS   BOARD   OF 
EDUCATION. 


BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED   BY   B.  B.  MUSSEY   &   CO. 
1851. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1851,  by 

HORACE  MANN, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


STEREOTYPED  AT  THE 
BOSTON    STEREOTYPE    FOUNDRY. 


TO 

THE   YOUNG   MEN 

OF 

MASSACHUSETTS 

THIS    VOLUME    IS    AFFECTIONATELY 


BY 

THE    AUTHOR. 

THIS  work  comes  from  one  in  whose  mind  present  Memories  are 
taking  the  place  of  early  Hopes.  It  is  specially  addressed  to  those 
in  whose  minds  future  Memories  will  soon  take  the  place  of  present 
Hopes.  Hence  a  fitting  occasion  presents  itself  for  the  statement 
of  a  few  principles,  by  whose  unerring  guidance  the  exulting 
Hopes  of  Youth  may  always  be  transformed  into  the  happy  Mem 
ories  of  Age. 

The  Youth  of  all  climes  and  times  have  a  common  attribute. 
The  desire  of  happiness  is  a  universal  desire.  God  fixes  this  ele 
ment  in  the  core  of  life.  Far  back  in  our  moral  organization,  before 
human  conduct  can  come  in  to  control  or  modify,  this  longing  for 
happiness,  this  hope  of  future  welfare,  is  radicated  in  the  soul ;  so 
that  it  seems  to  have  been  the  first  attribute  which  was  taken  for  the 
constitution  of  our  nature,  and  around  which  the  other  attributes 
were  gathered,  rather  to  have  been  added  to  the  rest  as  a  secondary 
or  incident.  The  desire  of  some  form  of  happiness  being  secured, 
as  a  motive  power,  it  seems  to  have  been  left  very  much  to  the 
option  of  each  individual  to  select  his  own  objects  of  enjoyment, 


IV 


whether  noblo  or  ignoble,'  and  to  devise  h;s  own  means  for  obtaining" 
them,  whether  righteous  or  unrighteous. 

The  emulous  and  aspiring  youth  of  a  Free  People  will  always 
find  much  of  their  private,  and  most  of  their  public  welfare,  indis- 
solubly  connected  with  the  institutions  and  laws  of  their  country. 
In  these,  therefore,  their  interest  is  both  public  and  personal  ;  —  it 
pertains  to  the  citizen  as  well  as  to  the  man.  All  great  moral 
questions,  though  touching  them  but  lightly  at  first,  will  come  closer 
and  closer  home,  as  long  as  they  live  ;  —  growing  into  greater 
importance  for  their  posthumous  memory  than  for  their  living 
fame,  and  affecting  the  fortunes  of  their  posterity  even  more  than 
their  own. 

Though  all  Young  Men  are  substantially  alike  in  their  desire  of 
•well  being,  yet,  in  regard  to  the  guiding  principles  by  which  the 
objects  of  hope  are  pursued,  in  order  to  obtain  happiness,  three 
marked  distinctions,  or  classes,  exist  among  them. 

1.  There  are  those  who  adopt  with  implicit  and  unquestioning  faith 
the  views  of  their  parents,  or  of  the  circle,  or  caste,  into  which  they 
were  thrown  by  the  accident  of  birth.     They  never  venture  to  ex 
plore  or  wander  outside  of  the  ideas  and  opinions  among  which 
they  were  born  and  bred.     For  them,  an  hereditary  boundary  en 
closes   thought,  belief,  hope.      Whether  the  opinions  amid  which 
they  live  are  insular  in  their  narrowness,  or  continental  in  their 
breadth  ;   whether  they  belong  to   the  earth,  came   up  from  the 
dark  regions  below,  or  descended  from  the  realms  of  purity  above, 
they  are  taken  into  the  receptive  soul,  as  unfledged  birds  take  what 
ever  food  is  offered  them,  from  friend  or  foe,  with  closed  eye  and 
opened  mouth.     Even  if  practically  right,  therefore,  they  are  never 
rationally  right,  for  they  have  never  discerned  between  good  and  ill  ; 
and  all  their  convictions,  whether  true  or  untrue,  rest  upon   the 
foundation  of  bigotry  alone. 

2.  The  second  class  look  eagerly  beyond  family  or  caste.     They 
anxiously  inquire  what  views,  what  dogmas,  are  in  the  ascendant 


DEDICATION.  V 

among  men,  —  what  party  predominates  or  outvotes,  what  avowals 
or  professions  will  most  readily  open  avenues  to  wealth,  propi 
tiate  power,  win  patronage,  insure  advancement.  Finding  where 
the  preponderance  of  forces  lies,  they  attach  themselves  to  the 
stronger.  No  matter  whether  the  tide  ebbs  or  flows,  they  drift 
with  the  current.  If  popular  views  change,  they  change,  "  like  a 
wave  driven  with  the  wind  and  tossed ; "  like  a  chameleon,  chan 
ging  its  color  with  every  contact. 

Some  of  this  class,  more  sagacious,  though  not  less  false  to  prin 
ciple,  than  the  rest,  ascend  an  eminence,  whence  they  can  survey 
the  direction  of  forces,  mark  the  future  point  and  period  of  their 
union,  and  then  they  strike  at  once  for  the  spot%  whither  those  forces 
are  converging  They,  not  less  than  their  fellows,  warp  eternal 
principles  to  suit  the  vice  of  the  hour,  only  it  is  an  hour  somewhat 
future,  instead  of  the  present  one. 

3.  But  there  is  a  third  class  of  Young  Men  who  are  true  to  the 
sacred  instincts  of  virtue,  and  devoutly  reverent  of  duty.  They 
seek,  not  for  the  time-hallowed,  but  for  the  truth-hallowed.  They 
have  learnt  that,  in  the  divine  classification,  there  are  but  two 
great  objects  in  the  universe,  —  God  and  Mankind.  These  are  the 
only  existences  recognized  in  those  two  supreme  laws,  which,  by 
divine  prerogative,  hold  all  other  laws  in  their  embrace.  Hence  the 
two  resulting  and  all-comprehending  duties,  —  love  to  God  and  love 
to  Man.  The  convictions  and  sentiments  which  belong  to  the 
Brotherhood  of  the  one,  stand  upon  the  same  basis  of  authority  as 
those  which  belong  to  the  Fatherhood  of  the  other.  Hence  all 
other  entities  and  possibilities,  —  opulence,  power,  fame,  genius, 
things  present,  or  things  to  come,  — are,  and  forever  must  be,  sec 
ondary  and  subordinate  to  these  primary  and  everlasting  laws.  No 
names  so  lofty,  no  multitude  so  large,  that  they  can  abolish  these 
truths,  or  abstract  one  jot  or  tittle  from  their  binding  force,  in  this 
life,  or  in  any  life.  They  are  coeternal  with  their  Author  ;  unchange 
able  as  He,  and  moral  life  and  moral  death  wait  upon  their  award. 


VI  DEDICATION. 

When  the  Young  Man  of  this  class  looks  within  himself,  he  finds 
the  constitution  of  his  own  moral  nature  to  be  such,  that  annihila 
tion  with  truth  is  better  than  the  most  favored  existence  with  error. 
And  when  he  looks  without  himself,  he  sees  there  is  a  God  en 
throned  above,  mightier  than  every  "  god  of  this  world,"  and  that 
there  is  a  divine  law  higher  than  any  laws  of  fallible  men.  Hence 
he  knows  that  Right  and  Truth  will  assuredly  triumph,  and  that  all 
who  oppose  them  will  be  scattered  as  the  whirlwind  scatters  the 
chaff.  The  patriarchs  sold  Joseph  into  Egypt;  yet  God  was 
with  him,  and  raised  him  to  honor,  and  at  last  put  the  lives  of  his 
treacherous  brethren  into  his  hands. 

Whatever  may  be  the  peculiar  madness  of  the  hour,  in  what 
ever  direction  the  gauds  of  wealth  may  beckon,  or  the  prizes  of  am 
bition  call,  let  the  Young  Man  remember,  tliat  only  can  be  honor 
able  which  is  just,  that  only  can  be  safe  which  is  right.  Hence, 
though  the  perfumed  breezes  of  flattery  may  entice  him  on  one  side, 
and  a  storm  of  maledictions  beat  fiercely  against  him  on  the  other, 
let  him  consecrate  himself  to  Justice  and  Truth,  and  be  inspired 
with  the  faith  that,  though  the  earth  should  quake  or  the  heavens 
fall,  an  omniscient  eye  will  over- watch,  and  an  omniscient  arm  will 
protect  him. 

Among  the  wiles  of  the  sorceress  that  beguile  the  young  to  their 
ruin  there  is  no  more  seductive,  yet  fallacious  temptation,  than  the 
value  which  seems  to  belong  to  the  passing  hour,  and  to  the  pleas 
ures  it  may  bring.  How  infinitely  small  a  part  of  existence  is  the 
present  day,  or  year !  How  insignificant  its  point  compared  with 
the  ages  to  come !  What  are  its  huzzas,  its  ostentation,  and  its 
pride,  when  placed  in  the  balance  against  the  eternity  of  rewards 
that  crown  allegiance  to  duty  ?  O,  how  insane  and  fatuous  to 
barter  the  undecaying  honors  of  the  future  for  the  transitory  joys 
of  the  present !  In  the  future,  lies  the  wealth  of  every  man  ;  the 
present  is  only  an  opportunity  to  make  its  title  secure.  The  tempo 
rizer  must  snatch  from  hour  to  hour  at  some  new  expedient,  which, 


DEDICATION.  Vll 

if  he  fails  to  seize,  he  sinks  to  perdition.     The  virtuous  man  binds 
himself  to  a  principle,  and  soars  securely  through  all  worlds. 

Nothing  stands  upon  a  more  adamantine  basis  of  truth  than  the 
principles  which  decide  between  Human  Freedom  and  Human 
Slavery.  These  eternal  principles  happen  now,  in  a  peculiar  degree, 
to  be  implicated  in  the  shifting  and  uncertain  current  of  politics  ; 
and  political  storms  may  seem  for  a  time  to  overwhelm  them.  But 
the  cloud  which  obscures  the  sun  does  not  annihilate  it ;  and  these 
principles  are  sure  to  emerge  and  shine  unclouded  in  their  native 
splendor  forever.  Every  act,  whether  of  individuals  or  of  govern 
ments,  whether  committed  in  past  days  or  in  our  day,  which  compro 
mises  the  sacred  principles  of  Human  Freedom,  or  postpones  its  inter 
ests  to  other  interests,  is  set  down,  in  the  calendar  of  fate,  for  ultimate 
and  universal  execration.  This  is  just  as  certain  as  it  is  that  the  great 
crimes  of  the  race  committed  in  past  ages,  —  the  persecutions  of  the 
early  Christians,  the  tortures  of  the  Inquisition,  or  the  atrocities  of 
the  African  Slave  trade,  —  are  now  condemned  by  the  awful  verdict 
of  history  and  the  ever-sounding  reprobation  of  mankind.  In  the 
spread  of  Christianity,  in  the  advance  of  civilization,  in  the  moral 
development  of  the  people,  a  tribunal  is  now  preparing,  which  will 
pronounce  sentence  of  condemnation  against  the  abetters  of  slavery, 
to  be  promulgated  as  from  Sinai,  and  preserved  in  the  archives  of 
eternity.  The  Progress  of  the  Age  bears  us  on,  not  only  to  a  for 
ward,  but  to  an  upward  point ;  and  what  we  now  say  against  the 
apostates  to  duty  and  the  traitors  of  mankind,  in  past  ages,  however 
much  they  may  have  been  honored,  caressed,  and  rewarded  in  their 
day,  will  soon  be  said  of  every  one  amongst  ourselves  who  leads  or 
joins  the  band  of  conspirators  against  the  Rights  of  Man. 

Every  Young  Man,  however  obscure  or  powerless  he  may  seem, 
can  do  something  for  the  cause  of  freedom.  Whatever  disadvan 
tages  the  youth  may  labor  under,  they  have  one  all-compensating 
advantage.  A  longer  period  of  life  is  before  them,  and  deeds 
which  can  only  be  accomplished  through  years  of  labor,  they  can 


Vlll  DEDICATION. 

achieve.  But  our  success  depends  infinitely  less  upon  our  strength 
than  upon  our  motive.  When  we  supply  the  virtuous  will,  God 
supplies  the  power ;  so  that  the  result  corresponds,  not  to  our  weak 
ness,  but  to  his  omnipotence.  We  are  thus  made  able 


"  to  join 


Our  partial  movements  with  the  master  wheel 
Of  the  great  world,  and  serve  that  sacred  end, 
Which  He,  the  unerring  Reason,  keeps  in  view." 

Those  Young  Men  of  Massachusetts,  then,  of  the  noble  lineage 
of  the  Pilgrims,  who  have  been  nursed  amid  the  influences  of  sanctuary 
and  school,  in  whose  bosoms  is  the  sacred  depository  of  future  and 
boundless  hopes,  but  who  are  now  counselled  to  abandon  their  in 
tegrity,  who  are  brought  into  peril  of  being  corrupted  by  the  lures 
of  wealth,  or  fascinated  by  the  dazzling  of  worldly  honors,  or  swept 
away  by  the  pressure  of  the  multitude  that  do  evil,  I  adjure  to  stand 
fast  and  immovable  on  those  sacred  and  eternal  principles  of  Hu 
man  Liberty  which  came  down  to  us  through  the  fires  of  oppression 
and  the  agony  and  blood  of  martyrs,  but  came  from  God;  — 
principles  that  can  never  suffer  the  decays  of  time,  which  kings  nor 
senates  of  kings  can  ever  abolish,  and  which,  however  much  the 
passions  of  men  may  seek  to  taint  or  defile  them,  are  ever  beautiful 
and  fair,  as  the  names  of  all  their  disciples  shall  hereafter  be.  I  call 
upon  Young  Men  to  throw  themselves  forward  in  imagination  into 
middle  life,  or  old  age,  and  there  behold  how  these  mighty  questions 
will  look  in  the  retrospect  of  time,  when  the  brilliant  robes  which 
now  gild  the  tempter  are  gone,  and  only  the  ghastly  fiend  remains ; 
when  the  passion  that  prompted  the  crime  is  dead,  and  only  the 
remorse  survives.  Think  not  of  luxury,  or  wealth,  or  ignoble  ease, 
but  only  of  an  heroic  conflict,  careless  of  the  present  strength  of  the 
foe.  Take  no  bribe  from  the  hand  of  power,  in  whatever  disguise 
of  beauty  it  may  come,  but  spurn  it  and  its  author  alike.  Let  your 
future  manhood  realize  the  generous  aspirations  of  your  youth ;  and, 
amid  the  seductions  of  the  present  hour,  prize  only  the  jubilant 


DEDICATION.  IX 

memories  you  can  lay  up  for  old  age.  It  may  grieve  you  to  break 
friendships,  but  truth  and  duty  are  your  nearest  friends.  It  may  be 
painful  to  live  amongst  those  who  upbraid  and  condemn  you;  but  be 
a  coward  when  virtue  is  in  peril,  and  your  own  accusing  conscience 
you  must  live  with  forever.  Study  those  exemplars  of  excellence  who 
came  purified  and  resplendent  out  of  fiery  trials.  It  is  said  of  Francis 
the  First,  that  when  he  read  the  valorous  exploits  of  Gaston  de  Foix, 
he  wept  tears  of  emulation.  Rejoice,  then,  though  marshalled  in  the 
fore  front  of  battle  when  the  Rights  of  Humanity  are  in  danger, 
and  you  shall  rejoice  again  and  forever  in  their  triumph.  Read  and 
ponder  what  was  so  nobly  said  by. one  of  the  heathen  of  the  old 
world,  and  be  ashamed,  yea,  weep  for  your  country  and  your  kind, 
if  the  Christianity  of  America  has  fallen  below  the  paganism  of 
Rome.  Seneca  says,  — 

•  Virtue  covets  danger;  and  whatever  may  be  her  aim,  she  never  stops  to 
consider  how  much  she  may  suffer,  since  her  sufferings  are  a  part  of  her 
i^lory.  Military  men  glory  in  their  scars.  With  exultation  they  point  us  to 
their  blood  flowing  in  an  honorable  cause.  Though  they  who  return  un- 
harmed  from  the  field  of  battle  may  have  done  as  many  and  as  noble  deeds, 
yet  it  is  the  wounded  soldier  who  receives  double  honors.  God  provides  for 
those  whom  he  would  make  most  honorable,  by  furnishing  them  with  oppor 
tunities  for  achieving  valiant  and  noble  deeds.  Hence  he  strews  difficulties 
along  their  path.  It  is  in  the  storm  you  see  who  is  worthy  to  be  a  pilot  5  and 
in  battle,  who  is  the  soldier How  can  I  know  with  what  con 
stancy  and  endurance  one  will  bear  up  against  reproach  and  obloquy  and  pop 
ular  odium,  if  he  has  grown  old  amidst  the  applauses  of  the  world,  if  he  has 
never  encountered  misfortune,  and  has  been  followed  by  the  indiscriminating 
favor  of  men  ?  .  .  .  .  Be  not  affrighted,  I  beseech  you,  at  the  dangers  which 
were  intended  by  the  immortal  gods  only  as  stimulants  to  exertion.  The  season 
of  calamity  is  virtue's  opportunity.  Tfiey,  rather,  are  to  be  esteemed  wretched, 
who  lie  torpid  in  luxurious  ease,  whom  a  sluggish  calm  detains  on  the  great 
voyage,  like  vessels  that  lie  weltering  on  a  sea  without  a  gale.  Whom  God 
approves  and  loves,  he  exercises,  and  tries  them  again  and  again,  and  thus  in 
ures  them  to  hardship  ;  but  those  whom  he  designs  to  enervate,  he  spares  and 

indulges  and  saves  them  from  impending  ills The  bravest  of  the 

army  are  they  whom  the  commander  selects  for  the  most  perilous  service.  The 


X  DEDICATION. 

general  details  his  choicest  men  to  send  on  secret  expeditions  by  night,  or  to 
explore  an  unknown  way,  or  to  dislodge  a  garrison  from  their  entrenchments. 
No  man  chosen  for  such  an  enterprise  is  ever  heard  to  say,  '  My  commander 
has  wronged  and  dishonored  me,'  but  rather,  '  He  has  known  well  whom  to 
choose.'  Such,  too,  is  the  language  of  those  who  are  required  to  suffer  what 
would  make  the  timid  and  the  ignoble  weep.  We  stand  honored  in  the  divine 
regards  when  the  great  experiment,  how  much  human  nature  can  endure  for  a 

virtuous  cause,  is  tried  in  ourselves As  teachers  deal  with  their 

scholars,  so  God  deals  with  good  men.  He  demands  most  of  those  in  whom 
he  has  most  confidence."  * 

WEST  NEWTON,  October,  1851. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

LETTER  ACCEPTING  THE  NOMINATION  FOR  THE  THIRTIETH 

CONGRESS, 1 


SPEECH,  DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 

OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  JUNE  30,  1848, 10 

SKETCH  OF  THE  OPENING  ARGUMENT  IN  THE  CASE  OF  THE 

UNITED  STATES   VS.   DANIEL  DRAYTON,     .  . '      .        .       84 

LETTER  ACCEPTING  THE  NOMINATION  FOR  THE  THIRTY- 
FIRST  CONGRESS, 119 

SPEECH,  DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 

OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  FEB.  23,  1849,        .  ...        121 

SPEECH,  DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 

OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  FEB.  15,  1850, 180 

TWO  LETTERS  ON  THE  EXTENSION  OF  SLAVERY,  AND  ON 
THE  RIGHT  OF  AN  ALLEGED  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  TO  A 
TRIAL  BY  JURY, 


LETTER:    THE  ORDINANCE  OF  1787, 


Xll  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

LETTEE   ACCEPTING   THE   NOMINATION    FOR   THE   THIRTY- 
SECOND  CONGRESS 340 

SPEECH,  DELIVERED  AT  DEDHAM,  NOV.  6,  1850,        ...  357 

SPEECH,  DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 

OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  FEB.  28,  1851, 390 

SPEECH,  DELIVERED  AT  LANCASTER,  MAY  19,  1851,  ...  473 

SPEECH,  DELIVERED  IN  BOSTON,  APRIL  8,  1851,  ....  523 

SPEECH,  DELIVERED  AT  WORCESTER,  SEPT.  16,  1851,        .        .  536 


LETTER 

ACCEPTING  THE  NOMINATION  FOR  THE  THIRTIETH  CONGRESS, 
MADE  BY  THE  WlIIG  CONVENTION  OF  DISTRICT  No.  8, 
MARCH,  1848. 

GENTLEMEN  ; 

YOUR  communication  of  the  16th  inst.,  being  directed 
to  \owton,  (instead  of  West  Newton,  where  I  reside,) 
did  not  reach  me  until  this  morning.  I  thank  you 
cordially  for  the  kind  expressions  of  personal  regard 
with  which  you  have  been  pleased  to  accompany  it. 
You  inform  me  that  at  a  convention  of  delegates 
assembled  in  Dedham,  on  Wednesday,  the  15th  inst., 
I  was  nominated  as  a  candidate  to  fill  the  vacancy  in 
Congress  occasioned  by  the  death  of  the  great  and 
good  man  whose  irreparable  loss  we,  his  constituents, 
with  a  nation  for  our  fellow-mourners,  deplore. 

At  first  thought,  the  idea  of  being  the  immediate 
successor  of  John  Quincy  Adams  in  the  councils  of 
the  nation  might  well  cause  any  man  to  shrink  back 
from  the  inevitable  contrast.  But  it  is  obvious^  on  a 
moment's  reflection,  that  the  difference  is  so  trivial 
between  all  the  men  whom  he  has  left,  compared  with 
the  disparity  between  them  and  him,  as  to  render  it  of 
little  consequence,  in  this  respect,  who  shall  succeed 
him  ;  and  the  people  in  the  Eighth  District,  in  their  de 
scent  from  Mr.  Adams  to  any  successor,  must  break  and 
bear  the  shock  of  the  fall,  as  best  they  can. 

I  most  heartily  concur  with  you  in  that  estimate  of 
tne  services,  and  veneration  for  the  character,  of  our 
late  representative,  which  your  resolutions  so  elo 
quently  express.  To  be  fired  by  his  example,  to  imi- 
1 


tate  his  diligence  and  fidelity  in  the  discharge  of  every 
trust,  to  emulate  his  moral  intrepidity,  which  always 
preferred  to  stand  alone  by  the  right,  rather  than  to 
join  the  retinue  and  receive  the  plaudits  of  millions,  as 
a  champion  of  the  wrong,  —  this  would  be,  in  the  beau 
tiful  language  of  the  Roman  historian,  "  to  ascend  to 
glory  by  the  path  of  virtue." 

One  of  the  resolutions  adopted  by  your  convention 
declares  the  three  following  things  :  — 

1.  That   the  successor  of  Mr.  Adams,  on  the  floor 
of  Congress,  should  be  a  man  "  whose  principles  shall 
be  in  consonance  with  those  of  his  predecessor." 

2.  That  his  fidelity  to  the  great  principles  of  human 
freedom  shall  be  unwavering.     And,  — 

3.  That  his  "  voice  and  vote  shall  on  all  occasions 
be  exercised  in  extending  and  securing  liberty  to  the 
human  race." 

Permit  me  to  reaffirm  these  sentiments  with  my 
whole  heart.  Should  the  responsibilities  of  that  suc- 
cessorship  ever  be  devolved  upon  me,  I  shall  endeavor 
so  to  fulfil  them,  that  these  dead  words  should  become 
a  living  soul.  I  should  deem  it  not  only  an  object  of 
duty,  but  of  the  highest  ambition,  to  contend  for  the 
noble  principles  you  have  here  expressed,  as  Mr.  Adams 
contended  for  them  ;  though,  unhappily,  it  would  be 
only  as  a  David  in  Saul's  armor.  Bear  with  me  for  a 
moment  while  I  enlarge  upon  these  sentiments. 

1.  "  In  consonance  ivith  his  principles."  —  I  believe 
it  was  the  sovereign  rule  of  Mr.  Adams's  life  to  act  in 
obedience  to  his  convictions  of  duty.  Truth  was  his 
guide.  His  conscience  was  non-elastic.  He  did  not 
strain  at  a  gnat  before  company,  on  account  of  its  size, 
and  then,  privately,  swallow  a  camel.  His  patriotism 
was  coextensive  with  his  country  ;  it  could  not  be 
crushed  and  squeezed  in  between  party  lines.  Though 
liable  to  err,  —  and  what  human  being  is  not  ?  —  yet 
his  principles  were  believed  by  him  to  be  in  accordance 


with  the  great  moral  laws  of  the  universe.  They 
were  thought  out  from  duty  and  religion,  and  not 
carved  out  of  expediency.  When  invested  with  pat 
ronage,  he  never  dismissed  a  man  from  office  because 
he  was  a  political  opponent,  and  never  appointed  one 
to  office  merely  because  he  was  a  political  friend. 
Hence  he  drew  from  Mr.  Holmes,  of  South  Carolina, 
this  noble  eulogium,  —  a  eulogium,  considering  the 
part  of  the  country  from  which  it  came,  as  honorable 
to  its  author  as  to  its  object, — that  "he  crushed  no 
heart  beneath  the  rude  grasp  of  proscription  ;  he  left 
no  heritage  of  widows'  cries  or  orphans'  tears."  Could 
all  the  honors  which  Mr.  Adams  ever  won  from  offices 
held  under  the  first  five  Presidents  of  the  United 
States,  and  from  a  public  service,  which,  commencing 
more  than  fifty  years  ago,  continued  to  the  day  of  his 
death,  be  concentrated  in  one  effulgent  blaze,  they 
would  be  less  far-shining  and  inextinguishable  than  the 
honor  of  sacrificing  his  election  for  a  second  presidential 
term,  because  he  would  riot,  in  order  to  obtain  it,  prosti 
tute  the  patronage  and  power  which  the  constitution 
had  placed  in  his  hands.  I  regard  this  as  the  sublimest 
spectacle  in  his  long  and  varied  career.  He  stood 
within  reach  of  an  object  of  ambition  doubtless  dearer 
to  him  than  life.  He  could  have  laid  his  hands  upon 
it.  The  "  still,  small  voice  "  said,  No  !  Without  a 
murmur,  he  saw  it  taken  and  borne  away  in  triumph 
by  another.  Compared  with  this,  the  block  of  many 
a  martyr  has  been  an  easy  resting-place. 

2.  "  Unwavering  fidelity  to  the  great  principles  of 
human  freedom" — The  Declaration  of  American 
Independence,  in  1776,  was  the  first  complete  assertion 
of  human  rights,  on  an  extensive  scale,  ever  made  by 
mankind.  Less  than  three  quarters  of  a  century  have 
elapsed,  and  already  the  greatest  portion  of  the  civil 
ized  world  has  felt  the  influence  of  that  Declaration. 
France,  for  years,  has  had  a  constitutional  monarchy  ; 


perhaps,  to-day,  her  government  is  republican.  Holland 
and  Belgium  are  comparatively  free.  Almost  all  the 
states  of  the  Germanic  Confederation  have  a  written 
constitution,  and  a  legislature  with  a  popular  branch. 
Prussia  has  lately  commenced  a  representative  system. 
The  iron  rule  of  Austria  is  relaxed  under  the  fer 
vent  heat  which  liberty  reflects  from  surrounding  na 
tions.  Naples  and  Sicily  have  just  burst  the  bonds  of 
tyranny.  In  Rome  and  the  States  of  the  Church, 
where,  under  the  influence  of  religious  and  political 
despotism,  the  heart  of  Freedom  was  supposed  to  be 
petrified  into  insoluble  hardness,  that  heart  is  now  be 
ginning  to  pulsate  with  a  new  life,  and  to  throb  with 
sympathy  for  humanity.  Great  Britain  and  Denmark 
have  emancipated  their  slaves  in  the  West  Indies. 
Measures  are  now  in  progress  to  ameliorate  the  condi 
tion  of  Russian  serfs.  Even  half-barbarous,  Mahom 
etan  Tunis  has  yielded  to  the  tide  of  free  principles. 
To  what  bar  of  judgment  will  our  own  posterity  bring 
us,  what  doom  of  infamy  will  history  pronounce  upon 
us,  if  the  United  States  shall  hereafter  be  found  the 
only  portion  of  Christendom  where  the  principles  of 
our  own  Declaration  of  Independence  are  violated  in 
the  persons  of  millions  of  our  people  ? 

3.  "  The  exercise,  on  all  occasions,  of  voice  and  vote, 
in  extending  and  securing  liberty  to  the  human  race." 
—  There  is  a  crisis  in  our  affairs.  A  territory,  in  extent 
far  exceeding  that  of  the  thirteen  original  states,  when 
they  repelled  the  power  of  Great  Britain,  has  lately 
been  added,  or  is,  doubtless,  about  to  be  added,  to  our 
national  domain.  The  expanse  of  this  territory  is  so 
vast,  that  it  may  be  divided  into  a  dozen  sections,  and 
these  sections  may  be  erected  into  separate  states,  each 
one  of  which  shall  be  so  large  that  Massachusetts 
would  seem  but  an  inconsiderable  court-yard,  if  placed 
in  front  of  it.  Parts  of  this  territory  are  fertile  and 
salubrious.  It  is  capable  of  supporting  millions  and 


millions  of  human  beings,  of  the  same  generation. 
The  numbers  of  the  successive  generations,  which  in 
the  providence  of  God  are  to  inhabit  it,  will  be  as  the 
leaves  of  the  forest,  or  the  sands  on  the  sea-shore. 
Each  one  of  these  is  to  be  a  living  soul,  with  its 
joys  and  sorrows,  its  hopes  and  fears,  its  susceptibilities 
of  exaltation  or  of  abasement.  Each  one  will  be  ca 
pable  of  being  formed  into  the  image  of  God,  or  of 
being  deformed  into  the  image  of  all  that  is  anti- 
godlike. 

These  countless  millions  are  to  be  our  kindred ; 
many  of  them,  perhaps,  our  own  descendants  ;  at  any 
rate,  our  brethren  of  the  human  family ;  for  has  not 
God  "  made  of  one  blood  all  nations  of  men  to  dwell 
upon  all  the  face  of  the  earth  "  ?  In  rights,  in  char 
acter,  in  happiness  ;  in  freedom  or  in  vassalage  ;  in  the 
glorious  immunities  and  prerogatives  of  knowledge,  or 
in  the  debasement  and  superstitions  of  ignorance  ;  in 
their  upward-looking  aspiration  and  love  of  moral  ex 
cellence,  or  in  their  downward-looking,  prone-rushing, 
and  brutish  appetites  and  passions,  what  shall  these  mil 
lions  of  our  fellow-creatures  be  ?  I  put  it  as  a  practical 
question,  What  shall  these  millions  of  our  fellow-crea 
tures  be  ?  —  for  it  is  more  than  probable  that  this  very 
generation,  —  nay,  that  the  actors  in  public  affairs,  be 
fore  the  sands  of  the  present  year  shall  have  run  out,  — 
will  prescribe  and  foreordain  their  doom.  That  doom 
will  be  what  our  present  conduct  predestines. 

If  we  enact  laws  and  establish  institutions,  under 
whose  benign  influences  that  vast  tract  of  territory 
shall  at  length  teem  with  myriads  of  human  beings, 
each  one  a  free-born  man  ;  each  one  enjoying  the  in 
alienable  right  of  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  hap 
piness  ;  "  each  one  free  for  the  cultivation  of  his  capaci 
ties,  and  free  in  the  choice  and  in  the  rewards  of  his 
labor  ;  —  if  we  do  this,  although  the  grand  results  may 
not  manifest  themselves  for  a  thousand  years,  yet  when 
1* 


6 

the  fulness  of  time  shall  come,  the  equity  and  the 
honor  of  framing  those  laws  and  institutions  will 
belong  to  us,  as  much  as  though  the  glorious  consum 
mation  could  be  realized  to-morrow.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  we  so  shape  the  mould  in  which  their  fortunes 
are  to  be  cast,  that,  for  them  or  for  any  portion  of  them, 
there  shall  be  servitude  instead  of  liberty,  ignorance 
instead  of  education,  debasement  instead  of  dignity, 
the  indulgence  of  bestial  appetites  instead  of  the  sanc 
tities  and  securities  of  domestic  life,  —  then,  until  the 
mountains  shall  crumble  away  by  age,  until  the  arches 
of  the  skies  shall  fall  in  rottenness,  these  mountains 
and  these  arches  will  never  cease  to  echo  back  the  ex 
ecrations  upon  our  memory  of  all  the  great  and  good 
men  of  the  world.  And  this  retribution,  I  believe,  will 
come  suddenly,  as  well  as  last  forever. 

In  one  of  the  South-western  States  a  vast  subterra 
nean  cave  has  been  discovered,  deep  down  in  whose 
chambers  there  is  a  pool  of  water,  on  which  no  beam 
of  sunlight  ever  shines.  A  sightless  fish  is  said  to  in 
habit  this  rayless  pool.  In  this  animal,  indeed,  the 
rudiments  of  a  visual  organ  are  supposed  to  be  dimly 
discernible ;  but  of  an  orb  to  refract  the  rays  of  light, 
or  of  a  retina  to  receive  them,  there  is  no  trace.  Nat 
uralists  suppose  that  the  progenitors  of  these  animals. 
in  ages  long  gone  by,  possessed  the  power  of  vision  : 
but  that,  being  buried  in  these  depths  by  some  convul 
sion  of  nature,  long  disuse  at  first  impaired,  at  length 
extinguished,  and  has  at  last  .obliterated  the  visual 
organ  itself.  The  animal  has  sunk  in  the  scale  of 
being,  until  its  senses  are  accommodated  to  the  black 
ness  of  darkness  in  which  it  dwells.  Were  this 
account  wholly  fabulous,  it  has  the  strongest  veri 
similitude,  and  doubtless  describes  what  would  actually 
occur  under  the  circumstances  supposed. 

Thus  will  it  be  with  faculties  above  the   surface  of 
the  earth,  as  well  as  below  it.     Thus  will   it  be  with 


human  beings,  as  well  as  with  the  lower  orders  of 
creation.  Thus  will  it  be  with  our  own  brethren  or 
children,  should  we  shut  up  from  them  the  book  of 
knowledge,  or  seal  their  senses  so  that  they  could  not 
read  it.  Thus  will  it  be  with  all  our  God-given  facul 
ties,  just  so  far  as  they  are  debarred  from  legitimate 
exercise  upon  their  appropriate  objects.  The  love  of 
knowledge  will  die  out,  when  it  ceases  to  be  stimulated 
by  the  means  of  knowledge.  Self-respect  will  die  out, 
under  the  ever-present  sense  of  inferiority.  The  sen 
timents  of  truth  and  duty  will  die  out,  when  cunning 
and  falsehood  can  obtain  more  gratifications  than 
frankness  and  honesty.  The  noblest  impulses  of  the 
human  soul,  the  most  sacred  affections  of  the  human 
heart,  will  die  out,  when  every  sphere  is  closed  against 
their  exercise.  When  such  a  dreadful  work  is  doing, 
or  threatens  to  be  done,  can  any  one  stand  listlessly  by, 
see  it  perpetrated,  and  then  expect  to  excuse  himself, 
under  the  false,  impious  pretext  of  Cain,  "  Am  I  my 
brother's  keeper  ?  " 

Fully,  then,  do  I  agree  with  you  and  the  delegates 
of  the  convention  you  represent,  in  saying  that  the 
successor  of  Mr.  Adams  should  be  one  "  whose  voice 
and  vote  shall,  on  all  occasions,  be  exercised  in  extend- 
.ing  and  securing  liberty  to  the  human  race."  Of  course 
I  do  not  understand  you  to  imply  any  violation  of  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States,  which  every  repre 
sentative  swears  to  support. 

Permit  me  to  say  a  word  personal  to  myself.  For 
eleven  years,  I  have  been  estranged  from  all  political 
excitements.  During  this  whole  period,  I  have  attend 
ed  no  political  meeting  of  any  kind  whatever.  I  have 
contented  myself  with  the  right  of  private  judgment 
and  the  right  of  voting,  though  it  has  usually  so  hap 
pened  that  my  official  duties  have  demanded  my 
absence  from  home  at  the  time  of  the  fall  elections.  I 
have  deemed  this  abstinence  from  actively  mingling  in 
political  contests  both  a  matter  of  duty  towards  oppos- 


8 

ing  political  parties,  and  a  proper  means  of  subserving 
the  best  interests  of  the  cause  in  which  I  had  em 
barked.  I  hoped  too,  by  so  doing,  to  assist  in  rearing 
men  even  better  than  those  now  belonging  to  any  party. 

The  nature  of  my  duties  also,  and  all  my  intercourse 
and  associations,  have  attracted  me  towards  whatever 
is  worthy  and  beneficent  in  all  parties,  rather  than 
towards  what  is  peculiar  to  any  one.  Not  believing 
in  political  pledges,  I  should  have  had  the  honor  to 
decline  giving  any  to  you,  had  you  not  had  the  first 
and  greater  honor  of  asking  none  from  me.  After 
what  I  have  said  above  in  favor  of  liberty  for  all  man 
kind,  it  would  be  a  strange  contradiction  did  I  consent 
to  be  myself  a  slave  of  party.  The  hands  which  you 
raised  in  behalf  of  yourselves  and  your  constituents, 
when  you  voted  for  the  noble  sentiments  contained  in 
the  resolution  I  have  quoted,  could  never  degrade 
themselves  by  forging  a  fetter  for  the  free  mind  of 
another,  or  fastening  one  upon  it  ;  and  the  hand  with 
which  I  have  penned  my  hearty  response  to  those 
sentiments  can  never  stretch  itself  out  to  take  a  fetter 
on.  Should  your  nomination,  therefore,  be  accepted 
and  be  successful,  it  must  be  with  the  explicit  under 
standing  between  us  that  I  shall  always  be  open  to 
receive  the  advice  of  my 'constituents,  shall  always, 
welcome  their  counsel,  always  be  most  grateful  for 
their  suggestions,  but  that,  in  the  last  resort,  my  own 
sense  of  duty  must  be  the  only  arbiter.  Should  dif 
ferences  arise,  the  law  opens  an  honorable  escape  for  both 
parties,  —  decimation  on  my  part,  substitution  on  yours. 

I  must  add,  in  closing,  that  so  far  as  personal  prefer 
ences  are  concerned,  I  infinitely  prefer  remaining  in 
my  present  position,  with  all  its  labor  and  its  thank- 
lessness,  to  any  oifice  in  the  gift  of  the  people.  I  had 
hoped  and  intended,  cither  in  a  public  or  private 
capacity,  to  spend  my  life  in  advancing  the  great  cause 
of  the  people's  education.  Two  considerations  alone 
could  tempt  me  to  abandon  this  purpose.  The  first  is 


important.  The  enactment  of  laws  which  shall  cover 
waste  territory,  to  be  applied  to  the  myriads  of  human 
beings  who  are  hereafter  to  occupy  that  territory,  is  a 
work  which  seems  to  precede  and  outrank  even  edu 
cation  itself.  Whether  a  wide  expanse  of  country 
shall  be  filled  with  beings  to  whom  education  is  per 
mitted,  or  with  those  to  whom  it  is  denied, — with 
those  whom  humanity  and  the  law  make  it  a  duty  to 
teach,  or  with  those  whom  inhumanity  and  the  law 
make  it  a  legal  duty  not  to  teach,  seems  preliminary 
to  all  questions  respecting  the  best  systems  and  methods 
for  rendering  education  effective. 

The  other  consideration  is  comparatively  unim 
portant  ;  though,  for  the  time  being,  it  has  embarrassed 
me  greatly.  I  now  learn  that  expectations  were  excit 
ed  at  your  convention,  that  if  a  nomination  were 
tendered  me,  it  would  not  be  declined.  Had  I  antici 
pated  the  favorable  regards  of  the  convention,  or  fore 
seen  that  such  expectations  would  be  raised,  I  should 
not  have  hearkened  to  the  proposition  for  a  moment  ; 
and  I  may  be  permitted  to  add,  that  when  I  saw  my 
name  announced  in  the  papers,  my  first  act  was  to  pre 
pare  a  letter  of  declination.  It  was  only  when  I  went 
to  deliver  the  letter  that  I  learnt  what  had  been 
done,  and  that,  in  the  opinion  of  persons  whose 
judgment  I  am  bound  to  respect,  I  had  been  so  far 
committed  by  my  too  partial  friends,  as  that  no  option 
remained. 

Yielding  to  these  considerations,  I  submit  myself  to 
the  decision  of  my  fellow-citizens. 

With  sentiments  of  high  personal  regard, 
I  am,  gentlemen, 

Your  friend  and  servant, 

HORACE  MANN. 

Hon.  THOMAS    FRENCH,  President ;    SAMUEL  C.  MANN,  JOHN   K. 
CORBETT,  EDWARD  CRKIIORE,  Esqs.,  Secretaries. 

WEST  NEWTON,  March  21,  1848. 


id 


SPEECH 


DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES,  JUNE  30,  1848,  ON  THE  RIGHT  OF  CON 
GRESS  TO  LEGISLATE  FOR  THE  TERRITORIES  OF  THE 

UNITED     STATES,    AND    ITS     DUTY    TO     EXCLUDE    SLAVERY 
THEREFROM. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN  ; 

I  have  listened  with  interest,  both  yesterday  and  to 
day,  to  speeches  on  what  is  called  the  "  Presidential 
Question."  I  propose  to  discuss  a  question  of  far 
greater  magnitude, — the  question  of  the  age,  —  one 
whose  consequences  Avill  not  end  with  the  ensuing  four 
years,  but  will  reach  forward  to  the  setting  of  the  sun 
of  time. 

Sir,  our  position  is  this :  The  United  States  finds 
itself  the  owner  of  a  vast  region  of  country  at  the 
west,  now  almost  vacant  of  inhabitants.  Parts  of  this 
region  are  salubrious  and  fertile.  We  have  reason  to 
suppose,  that,  in  addition  to  the  treasures  of  wealth 
which  industry  may  gather  from  its  surface,  there  are 
mineral  treasures  beneath  it.  —  riches  garnered  up  of 
old  in  subterranean  chambers,  and  only  awaiting  the 
application  of  intelligence  and  skill  to  be  converted 
into  the  means  of  human  improvement  and  happiness. 
These  regions,  it  is  true,  lie  remote  from  our  place  of 
residence.  Their  shores  are  washed  by  another  sea, 
and  it  is  no  figure  of  speech  to  say  that  another  sky 
bends  over  them.  So  remote  are  they,  that  their  hours 
are  not  as  our  hours,  nor  their  day  as  our  day  ;  and 
yet,  such  are  the  wonderful  improvements  in  art,  in 
modern  times,  as  to  make  it  no  rash  anticipation,  that, 


11 

before  this  century  shall  have  closed,  the  inhabitants 
on  the  Atlantic  shores  will  be  able  to  visit  their  breth 
ren  on  the  Pacific  in  ten  days  ;  and  that  intelligence 
will  be  transmitted  and  returned  between  the  eastern 
and  the  western  oceans  in  ten  minutes.  That  country, 
therefore,  will  be  rapidly  filled,  and  we  shall  be  brought 
into  intimate  relations  with  it,  and,  notwithstanding 
its  distance,  into  proximity  to  it. 

Now,  in  the  providence  of  God,  it  has  fallen  to  our 
lot  to  legislate  for  this  unoccupied,  or  but  partially  oc 
cupied,  expanse.  Its  great  future  hangs  upon  our 
decision.  Not  only  degrees  of  latitude  and  longitude, 
but  vast  tracts  of  time,  —  ages  and  centuries,  —  seem  at 
our  disposal.  As  are  the  institutions  which  we  form 
and  establish  there,  so  will  be  the  men  whom  these 
institutions,  in  their  turn,  will  form.  Nature  works  by 
fixed  laws ;  but  we  can  bring  this  or  that  combination 
of  circumstances  under  the  operation  of  her  laws,  and 
thus  determine  results.  Here  springs  up  our  responsibil 
ity.  One  class  of  institutions  will  gather  there  one 
class  of  men,  who  will  develop  one  set  of  characteris 
tics  ;  another  class  of  institutions  will  gather  there 
another  class  of  men,  who  will  develop  other  charac 
teristics.  Hence  their  futurity  is  to  depend  upon  our 
present  action.  Hence  the  acts  we  are  to  perform 
seem  to  partake  of  the  nature  of  creation,  rather  than 
of  legislation.  Standing  upon  the  elevation  which  we 
now  occupy,  and  looking  over  into  that  empty  world, 
"  yet  void,"  if  not  "  without  form,"  but  soon  to  be 
filled  with  multitudinous  life,  and  reflecting  upon  our 
power  to  give  form  and  character  to  that  life,  and 
almost  to  foreordain  what  it  shall  be,  I  feel  as  though 
it  would  be  no  irreverence  to  compare  our  condition  to 
that  of  the  Creator  before  he  fashioned  the  "  lord  "  of 
this  lower  world ;  for  we,  like  Him,  can  ingraft  one 
set  of  attributes,  or  another  set  of  attributes,  upon  a 
whole  race  of  men.  In  approaching  this  subject,  there- 


12 

fore,  I  feel  a  sense  of  responsibility  corresponding  to 
the  infinite,  —  I  speak  literally,  — the  infinite  interests 
which  it  embraces. 

As  far  as  the  time  allowed  me  will  permit,  I  propose 
to  discuss  two  questions.  The  first  is,  "  Whether 
Congress  can  lawfully  legislate  on  the  subject  of  sla- 
very  in  the  territories." 

On  this  question  a  new  and  most  extraordinary  doc 
trine  has  lately  been  broached.  A  new  reading  of  the 
constitution  has  been  discovered.  It  is  averred  that 
the  3d  section  of  the  4th  article,  giving  Congress  pow 
er  "to  dispose  of,  and  make  all  needful  rules  and  reg 
ulations  respecting  the  territory  or  other  property  belong 
ing  to  the  United  States,"  only  gives  power  to  legislate 
for  the  land  as  land.  It  is  admitted  that  Congress  may 
legislate  for  the  land  as  land,  —  geologically  or  botan- 
ically  considered, — perhaps  for  the  beasts  that  roam 
upon  its  surface,  or  the  fishes  that  swim  in  its  waters ; 
but  it  is  denied  that  Congress  possesses  any  power  to 
determine  the  laws  and  the  institutions  of  those  who 
shall  inhabit  that  "land." 

But  compare  this  with  any  other  object  of  purchase 
or  possession.  When  Texas  was  admitted  into  the 
Union,  it  transferred  its  "  navy  "  to  the  United  States ; 
in  other  words,  the  United  States  bought,  and  of  course 
owned,  the  navy  of  Texas.  What  power  had  Con 
gress  over  this  navy,  after  the  purchase  ?  According 
to  the  new  doctrine,  it  could  pass  laws  for  the  hull, 
the  masts,  and  the  sails  of  the  Texan  ships,  but  would 
have  no  power  to  navigate  them  by  officers  and  men. 
It  might  govern  the  ships  as  so  much  wood,  iron,  and 
cordage,  but  would  have  no  authority  over  commanders 
or  crews. 

But  we  are  challenged  to  show  any  clause  in  the 
constitution  which  confers  an  express  power  to  legis 
late  over  the  territories  we  possess.  I  challenge  our 
opponents  to  show  any  clause  which  confers  express 


13 

• 

power  to  acquire  those  territories  themselves.  If,  then, 
the  power  to  acquire  exists,  it  exists  by  implication  and 
inference  ;  and  if  the  power  to  acquire  be  an  implied 
one,  the  power  to  govern  what  is  acquired  must  be  im 
plied  also.  For,  for  what  purpose  does  any  man 
acquire  property  but  to  govern  and  control  it  ?  What 
does  a  buyer  pay  for,  if  it  be  not  the  right  to  "  dispose 
of"  ?  Such  is  the  doctrine  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States  :  "  The  right  to  govern,"  says  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  "  may  be  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  the  right  to  acquire."  Amer.  Ins.  Co.  vs.  Canter, 
1  Peters.  542.  See  also  McCidlough  vs.  Maryland,  4 
Wheat.  422.  The  Cherokee  Nation  vs.  Georgia,  5 
Peters,  44.  United  States  vs.  Gratiot,  14  Peters, 
537.  . 

But  I  refer  to  the  express  words  of  the  constitution, 
as  ample  and  effective  in  conferring  all  the  power  that 
is  claimed.  "  Congress  may  dispose  of,  and  make  all 
needful  rules  and  regulations, "&c.  If  Congress  may 
"  dispose  of"  this  land,  then  it  may  sell  it.  Insepara 
ble  from  the  right  to  sell  is  the  right  to  define  the 
terms  of  sale.  The  seller  may  affix  such  conditions 
and  limitations  as  he  pleases  to  the  thing  sold.  If  this 
be  not  so,  then  the  buyer  may  dictate  his  terms  to  the 
seller.  Answer  these  simple  questions :  Supposing 
the  United  States  to  own  land  in  fee  simple,  then,  is 
the  government  under  guardianship,  or  disabled  by 
minority  ?  Is  it  non  compos  mentis  ?  If  no  such  disabil 
ity  applies  to  it,  then  it  may  sell.  It  may  sell  the  fee 
simple,  or  it  may  carve  out  a  lesser  estate,  and  sell 
that.  It  may  incorporate  such  terms  and  conditions 
as  it  pleases  into  its  deed  or  patent  of  sale.  It  may 
make  an  outright  quitclaim,  or  it  may  reserve  the 
minerals  for  its  own  use,  or  the  navigable  streams  for 
public  highways,  as  it  did  in  regard  to  the  territory 
north-west  of  the  river  Ohio.  It  may  insert  the  con 
ditions  and  limitations  in  each  deed  or  patent  ;  or, 
2 


14 

• 

where  the  grantees  are  numerous,  it  may  make  general 
"  rules  and  regulations,"  which  are  understood  to  be  a 
part  of  each  contract,  and  are  therefore  binding  upon 
each  purchaser.  No  man  is  compelled  to  buy ;  but  if  any 
one  does  buy,  he  buys  subject  to  the  "  rules  and  regu 
lations  "  expressed  in  the  grant ;  and  neither  he,  nor 
his  grantees,  nor  his  or  their  heirs  after  them,  can  com 
plain.  I  want,  therefore,  no  better  foundation  for 
legislating  over  the  territories  than  the  fact  of  owner 
ship  in  the  United  States.  Grant  this,  and  all  is  grant 
ed.  If  I  own  a  farm,  or  a  shop,  I  may,  as  owner,  pre 
scribe  the  conditions  of  its  transfer  to  another.  If  he 
does  not  like  my  conditions,  then  let  him  abandon  the 
negotiation  ;  if  he  accedes  to  the  conditions,  then  let 
him  abide  by  them,  and  hold  his  peace. 

Sir,  in  the  state  to  which  I  belong,  we  hold  temper 
ance  to  be  a  great  blessing,  as  well  as  a  great  virtue  ; 
and  intemperance  to  be  a  great  curse,  as  well  as  a 
great  sin.  I  know  of  incorporated  companies  there, 
who  have  purchased  large  tracts  of  land  for  manufac 
turing  purposes.  They  well  know  how  essential  is  the 
sobriety  of  workmen  to  the  profitableness  of  their 
work  ;  they  know,  too,  how  wasteful  and  destructive 
is  inebriety.  In  disposing  of  their  land,  therefore,  to 
the  men  whom  they  would  gather  about  them  and 
employ,  they  incorporate  the  provision,  as  a  funda 
mental  article  in  the  deed  of  grant,  that  ardent  spirits 
shall  never  be  sold  upon  the  premises ;  and  thus  they 
shut  up,  at  once,  one  of  the  most  densely-thronged 
gateways  of  hell.  Have  they  not  a  right  to  do  so, 
from  the  mere  fact  of  ownership  ?  Would  any  judge 
or  lawyer  doubt  the  validity  of  such  a  condition  ;  or 
would  any  sensible  man  ever  doubt  its  wisdom  or 
humanity  ?  Pecuniarily  and  morally,  this  comes  under 
the  head  of  "needful  rules  and  regulations."  If  tip 
plers  do  not  like  them,  let  them  stagger  away,  and 
seek  their  residence  elsewhere. 


15 

But  the  United  States  is  not  merely  a  land  owner  j 
it  is  a  sovereignty.  As  such,  it  exercises  all  constitu 
tional  jurisdiction  over  all  its  territories.  Whence,  but 
from  this  right  of  sovereignty,  does  the  government 
obtain  its  power  of  saying  that  no  man  shall  purchase 
land  of  the  natives,  or  aborigines;  and  that,  if  you 
wish  to  buy  land  in  the  territories,  you  shall  come  to 
the  government  for  it  ?  Is  there  any  express  power  in 
the  constitution  authorizing  Congress  to  say  to  all  the 
citizens  of  the  United  States,  "  If  you  wish  to  buy 
nngranted  land  in  the  territories,  you  must  come  to  us, 
for  no  one  else  can  sell,  or  shall  sell  "  ?  This  right, 
sustained  by  all  our  legislation  and  adjudications,  covers 
the  whole  ground.  Lessee  of  Johnson  ct  aL  vs. 
Mclntos/i,8  Wheaton,5^3]  5  Cond.  Rep.  515. 

.  But,  leaving  the  constitution,  it  is  denied  that  there 
are  precedents.  The  honorable  gentlemen  from  Vir 
ginia  [Mr.  Bayly]  has  not  only  contested  the  power 
of  Congress  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  slavery  in 
the  territories,  but  he  has  denied  the  existence  of  prece 
dents  to  sustain  this  power.  Sir,  it  would  have  been 
an  assertion  far  less  bold,  to  deny  the  existence  of 
precedents  for  the  election  of  a  President  of  the  United 
States ;  for  the  instances  of  the  latter  have  been  far 
less  frequent  than  of  the  former.  Congress  has  legis 
lated  on  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  territories  all  the 
way  up  from  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  to  the 
present  time  ;  and  this  legislation  has  been  sustained 
by  the  judiciary  of  both  the  general  and  state  govern 
ments,  and  carried  into  execution  by  the  executive 
power  of  both.  See  Menard  vs.  Aspasia,  5  Peters, 
505;  Phebe  et  al.  vs.  Jay,  Breese's  Rep.  210  ;  Hogg 
vs.  The  Zanesville  Canal  Co.,  5  Ohio  Rep.  410  ;  Mar 
tin' 's  Louisiana  Rep.  N.  S.  699;  Spooncr  vs.  McCon- 
nell,  1  McLean'1  s  Rep.  341  ;  Harvey  vs.  Decker, 

Walker's  Mississippi  Rep.  36  ;  Rachael  vs.  Walker,  4 
Missouri  Rep.  350. 


16 

So  far  as  the  uniform  practice  of  sixty  years  can 
settle  a  doubtful,  or  confirm  an  admitted  right,  this 
power  of  legislating  over  the  territories  has  been  taken 
from  the  region  of  doubt,  and  established  upon  the 
basis  of  acknowledged  authority.  In  legislating  for 
all  that  is  now  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Wisconsin, 
Michigan.  Iowa,  Missouri,  Arkansas,  Mississippi,  Louis 
iana,  and  Florida,  we  have  legislated  on  the  subject 
of  slavery  in  the  territories.  Sixty  years  of  legislation 
on  one  side,  and  not  a  denial  of  the  right  on  the  other. 

But  the  gentleman  from  Virginia  [Mr.  Bayly]  says, 
that  the  action  of  Congress  in  regard  to  the  territories 
has  been  rather  that  of  constitution-making  than  of 
law-making.  Suppose  this  to  be  true  ;  does  not  the 
greater  include  the  less  ?  If  Congress  could  make  a 
constitution  for  all  the  territories, — an  organic,  funda 
mental  law,  —  a  law  of  laws,  — could  it  not,  had  it  so 
pleased,  make  the  law  itself?  A  constitution  prescribes 
to  the  legislature  what  it  shall  do,  and  what  it  shall 
not  do  ;  it  commands,  prohibits,  and  binds  men  by 
oaths  to  support  itself.  It  says,  "  Hitherto  SHALT  thou 
come,  and  no  farther."  And  if  Congress  can  do  this, 
can  it  not  make  the  local  law  itself?  Can  aught  be 
more  preposterous  ?  As  if  we  could  command  others 
to  do  what  we  have  no  right  to  do  ourselves,  and  pro 
hibit  others  from  doing  what  lies  beyond  our  own 
jurisdiction  !  Surely,  to  decree  on  what  subjects  a 
community  shall  legislate,  and  on  what  they  shall 
not  legislate,  is  the  exercise  of  the  highest  power. 

But  Congress  has  not  stopped  with  the  exercise  of 
the  constitution-making  power.  In  various  forms,  and 
at  all  times,  it  has  legislated  for  the  territories,  in  the 
strictest  sense  of  the  word  legislation.  It  has  legislat 
ed  again  and  again,  and  ten  times  again,  on  this  very 
subject  of  slavery.  See  the  act  of  1794,  prohibiting 
the  slave  trade  from  "any  port  or  place"  in  the  United 
States.  Could  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,  under 


17 

this  act,  have  gone  into  one  of  our  territories  and  there 
have  lilted  out  vessels  for  the  slave  trade  ?  Surely  he 
could,  if  Congress  had  no  right  to  legislate  over  terri 
tories  only  as  so  much  land  and  water. 

By  statute  1798,  chapter  28,  §  7,  slaves  were  forbid 
den  to  be  brought  into  the  Mississippi  Territory  from 
without  the  United  States,  and  all  slaves  so  brought  in 
were  made  free. 

So  the  act  of  1800,  chapter  51,  in  further  prohibi 
tion  of  the  slave  trade,  applied  to  all  citizens  of  the 
United  States,  whether  living  in  territories  or  in  or 
ganized  states.  Did  not  this  legislation  cover  the 
territories  ? 

By  statute  1804,  chapter  38,  $  10,  three  classes  of 
slaves  were  forbidden  to  be  introduced  into  the  Orleans 
Territory. 

Statute  1807,  chapter  22,  prohibiting  the  importation 
of  slaves  after  January  1,  1808,  prohibited  their  im 
portation  into  the  territories  in  express  terms. 

Statute  1818,  chapter  91,  statute  1819,  chapter  101, 
and  statute  1820,  chapter  113,  prohibiting  the  slave 
trade,  and  making  it  piracy,  expressly  included  all  the 
territories  of  the  United  States. 

Statute  1819,  chapter  21,  authorized  the  President 
to  provide  for  the  safe-keeping  of  slaves  imported  from 
Africa,  and  for  their  removal  to  their  home  in  that  land. 
Under  this  law,  the  President  might  have  established 
a  depot  for  slaves  within  the  limits  of  our  territories, 
on  the  gulf,  or  on  the  Mississippi. 

By  statute  1820,  chapter  22,  <§>  8,  Congress  estab 
lished  what  has  been  called  the  Missouri  compromise 
line,  thereby  expressly  legislating  on  the  subject  of 
slavery.  So  of  Texas.  See  Jo.  Res.  March  1,  1851. 

By  statute  1819,  chapter  93,  statute  1821,  chapter 
39,  §  2,  and  statute  1822,  chapter  13,  §  9,  Congress 
legislated  on  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  Territory  of 
Florida. 

2* 


18 

Does  it  not  seem  almost  incredible  that  a  defender 
and  champion  of  slavery  should  deny  the  power  of 
Congress  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the 
territories  ?  If  Congress  has  no  such  power,  by  what 
right  can  a  master  recapture  a  fugitive  slave  escaping 
into  a  territory  ?  The  constitution  says,  "  No  person 
held  to  service,  or  labor,  in  one  state,  escaping  into 
another,"  —  that  is,  another  state,  —  "shall  be  dis 
charged  from  such  service,  or  labor,"  &c.  The  act  of 
1793,  chapter  7,  §  3,  provides  that  when  a  person  held 
to  labor,"  &c.,  "  shall  escape  into  any  other  of  the  said 
states,  or  territory"  he  may  be  taken.  By  what  other 
law  than  this  can  a  runaway  slave  be  retaken  in  a 
territory  1  If  Congress  has  no  power  to  legislate  on 
the  subject  of  slavery  in  any  territory,  then,  surely,  it 
cannot  legislate  for  the  capture  of  a  fugitive  slave  in  a 
territory.  The  argument  cuts  both  ways.  The  knife 
wounds  him  who  would  use  it  to  wound  his  fellow. 

Further  than  this.  If  slavery  is  claimed  to  be  one 
of  the  common  subjects  of  legislation,  then  any  legis 
lation  by  Congress  for  the  territories,  on  any  of  the 
common  subjects  of  legislation,  is  a  precedent,  going 
to  prove  its  right  to  legislate  on  slavery  itself.  If 
Congress  may  legislate  on  one  subject  belonging  to  a 
class,  then  it  may  legislate  on  any  other  subject  be 
longing  to  the  same  class.  Now,  Congress  has  legis 
lated  for  the  territories  on  almost  the  whole  circle  of 
subjects  belonging  to  common  legislation.  It  has  legis 
lated  on  the  elective  franchise,  on  the  pecuniary  qual 
ifications  and  residence  of  candidates  for  office,  on  the 
militia,  on  oaths,  oti  the  per  diem  and  mileage  of 
members,  &c.,  &c.  By  statute  1811,  chapter  21,  <§>  3, 
authorizing  the  Territory  of  Orleans  to  form  a  constitu 
tion,  it  was  provided  that  all  legislative  proceedings 
and  judicial  records  should  be  kept  and  promulgated  in 
the  English  language.  Cannot  Congress  make  provis 
ion  for  the  rights  of  the  people,  as  well  as  for  the 


19 

language  in  which  the  laws  and  records  defining  those 
rights  shall  be  expressed  ?  Any  language  is  sweet  to 
the  ears  of  man  which  gives  him  the  right  of  trial  by 
jury,  of  habeas  corpus,  of  religious  freedom,  and  of 
life,  limb,  and  liberty  ;  but  accursed  is  that  language, 
and  fit  only  for  the  realms  below,  which  deprives  an 
immortal  being  of  the  rights  of  intelligence  and  of 
freedom  ;  of  the  right  to  himself,  and  the  dearer  rights 
of  family. 

But  all  this  is  by  no  means  the  strongest  part  of  the 
evidence  with  which  our  statutes  and  judicial  decisions 
abound,  showing  the  power  of  Congress  to  legislate 
over  territories.  From  the  beginning,  Congress  has 
not  only  legislated  over  the  territories,  but  it  has  ap 
pointed  and  controlled  the  agents  of  legislation. 

The  general  structure  of  the  legislature  in  sev 
eral  of  the  earlier  territorial  governments  was  this  :  It 
consisted  of  a  governor  and  of  two  houses,  —  an  upper 
and  a  lower.  Without  an  exception,  where  a  governor 
has  been  appointed,  Congress  has  always  reserved 
his  appointment  to  itself,  or  to  the  President.  The 
governor  so  appointed  has  always  had  a  veto  power 
over  the  two  houses  ;  and  Congress  has  always  re 
served  to  itself,  or  to  the  President,  a  veto  power,  not 
only  over  him,  but  over  him  and  both  the  houses  be 
sides.  Congress  has  often  interfered  also  with  the 
appointment  of  the  upper  house,  leaving  only  the 
lower  house  to  be  chosen  exclusively  by  the  people  of 
the  territory  ;  and  it  has  determined  even  for  the  lower 
house  the  qualifications  both  of  electors  and  of  elected. 
Further  still  :  the  power  of  removing  the  governor,  at 
pleasure,  has  always  been  reserved  to  Congress,  or  to 
the  President. 

Look  at  this  :  Congress  determines  for  the  territory 
the  qualifications  of  electors  and  elected, — at  least  in 
the  first  instance.  No  law  of  the  territorial  legisla 
ture  is  valid  until  approved  by  the  governor.  Though 


20 

approved  by  the  governor,  it  may  be  annulled  by  Con 
gress,  or  by  the  President  ;  and  the  governor  is  ap 
pointed,  arid  may  be  removed  at  pleasure,  by  Congress 
or  by  the  President. 

To  be  more  specific,  I  give  the  following  outline  of 
some  of  the  territorial  governments :  — 

Ohio  Territory,  statute  1789,  chapter  8.  —  A  gov 
ernor  for  four  years,  nominated  by  the  President,  ap 
proved  by  the  Senate,  with  power  to  appoint  all  sub 
ordinate  civil  and  military  officers. 

A  secretary  for  four  years,  appointed  in  the  same 
way. 

Three  judges,  to  hold  office  during  good  behavior. 
Governor  and  judges  the  sole  legislature,  until  the  dis 
trict  shall  contain  five  thousand  free  male  inhabitants. 
Then,  — 

A  House  of  Assembly,  chosen  by  qualified  electors, 
for  two  years. 

A  legislative  council  of  five,  to  hold  office  for  five 
years.  The  House  of  Assembly  to  choose  ten  men, 
five  of  whom  are  to  be  selected  by  the  President  and 
approved  by  the  Senate.  These  five  to  be  the  "  Legis 
lative  Council." 

A  governor,  as  before,  with  an  unconditional  veto, 
and  a  right  to  convene,  prorogue,  and  dissolve  the 
Assembly. 

Power  given  to  the  President  to  revoke  the  commis 
sions  of  governor  and  secretary. 

Indiana  Territory,  statute  1800,  chapter  41.  — Sim 
ilar  to  that  of  Ohio.  At  first,  the  lower  house  to  con 
sist  of  not  more  than  nine,  nor  less  than  seven. 

Mississippi  Territory,  statute  1800,  chapter  50.  — 
Similar  to  that  of  Indiana. 

Michigan  Territory,  statute  1805,  chapter  5.  — ''Sim 
ilar  to  that  of  Indiana. 

Illinois  Territory,  statute  1809,  chapter  13.  —  Sim 
ilar  to  that  of  Indiana. 


21 

Alabama    Territory,   statute    1817,    chapter  59. — 

Similar  to  that  of  Indiana. 

\Yincuutiin-  Territory,  statute  1836,  chapter  54.  — 
Governor  for  three  years,  appointed  as  above,  and  re 
movable  by  the  President,  with  power  to  appoint  offi 
cers  and  grant  pardons.  Unconditional  veto. 

Secretary  for  four  years,  removable  by  the  President. 
In  the  absence,  or  during  the  inability,  of  the  gov 
ernor,  to  perform  his  duties. 

Legislative  Assembly  to  consist  of  a  Council  and  a 
House  of  Representatives,  to  be  chosen  for  two  years. 
Congress  to  have  an  unconditional  veto,  to  "be  exer 
cised  on  laws  approved  by  the  governor. 

Louisiana  Territory,  statute  1803,  chapter  1.  — 
Sole 'dictatorial  power  given  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States  ;  and  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United 
States  placed  at  his  command  to  govern  the  territorial 
inhabitants.  —  (This  was  under  Mr.  Jefferson,  a  strict 
construetionist.) 

Territory  of  Orleans,  statute  1804,  chapter  38.  — 
Governor  nominated  by  the  President,  approved  by  the 
Senate,  tenure  of  office  three  years.  Removable  by 
the  President.  Secretary  for  four  years,  to  be  gov 
ernor  in  case,  &c. 

Legislative  Council  of  thirteen,  to  be  annually  ap 
pointed  by  the  President. 

Governor  and  Council,  of  course,  a  reciprocal  negative 
on  each  other.  Congress  an  unconditional  veto  on 
both. 

District  of  Louisiana,  statute  1804,  chapter  38.  — 
To  be  governed  by  the  governor  and  judges  of  the 
Territory  of  Indiana. 

Congress  an  unconditional  veto  on  all  their  laws. 

Missouri  Territory,  statute  1812,  chapter  95. — A 
governor,  appointable  and  removable  as  above. 

Secretary,  the  same. 

A  Legislative  Council  of  nine.     Eighteen   persons 


22 

to  be  nominated  by  the  House  of  Representatives 
for  the  territory ;  nine  of  these  to  be  selected  and 
appointed  by  the  President  and  Senate.  A  House  of 
Representatives,  to  be  chosen  by  the  people. 

Arkansas  Territory,  statute  1819,  chapter  49.  — A 
governor  and  secretary,  appointable  and  removable  as 
above. 

All  legislative  power  vested  in  the  governor  and  in 
the  judges  of  the  superior  court. 

When  a  majority  of  the  freeholders  should  elect, 
then  they  might  adopt  the  form  of  government  of 
Missouri.* 

East  and  West  Florida,  statute  1819,  chapter  93.  — 
Statute  1821,  chapter  29.  —  Statute  1822,  chapter  13. 
From  March  3,  1819,  to  March  30,  1822,  the  govern 
ment  vested  solely  in  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  to  be  exercised  by  such  officers  as  he 
should  appoint. 

After  March  30,  1822,  a  governor  and  secretary,  ap 
pointable  and  removable  as  above. 

All  legislative  power  vested  in  the  governor,  and  in 
thirteen  persons,  called  a  legislative  council,  to  be  ap 
pointed  annually  by  the  President. 

Yet,  sir,  notwithstanding  all  this  legislation  of  Con 
gress  for  the  territories,  on  the  subject  of  slavery  itself ; 
notwithstanding  its  legislation  on  a  great  class  of  sub 
jects  of  which  slavery  is  acknowledged  to  be  one  ; 
notwithstanding  its  appointment,  in  some  cases,  of  the 
legislative  power  of  the  territory, —  making  its  own 
agent,  the  governor,  removable  at  pleasure, — giving 
him  a  veto,  in  the  first  place,  and  reserving  to  itself  a 
veto  when  he  has  approved ;  notwithstanding  the  ex 
ercise,  in  other  cases,  of  full,  absolute  sovereignty  over 
the  inhabitants  of  the  territories,  and  all  their  interests  ; 
and,  notwithstanding  such  has  been  the  practice  of  the 
government  for  sixty  years,  under  Jefferson,  Madison, 
Monroe,  Jackson,  and  others,  it  is  now  denied  that 


Congress  has  any  right  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  in  the  territories.  Sir,  with  a  class  of  politicians 
in  this  country,  it  has  come  to  this,  that  slavery  is  the 
only  sacred  thing  in  existence.  It  is  self-existent,  like 
a  god,  and  human  power  cannot  prevent  it.  From 
year  to  year,  it  goes  on  conquering  and  to  conquer,  and 
human  power  cannot  dethrone  it. 

Sir,  I  will  present  another  argument  on  this  subject, 
and  I  do  not  see  how  any  jurist  or  statesman  can  in 
validate  it. 

Government  is  one,  but  its  functions  are  several. 
They  are  legislative,  judicial,  executive.  These  func 
tions  are  coordinate  ;  each  supposes  the  other  two. 
There  must  be  a  legislature  lo  enact  laws  ;  there  must 
be  a  judiciary  to  expound  the  laws  enacted,  and  point 
out  the  individuals  against  whom  they  are  to  be  en 
forced  ;  there  must  be  an  executive  arm  to  enforce  the 
decisions  of  the  courts.  In  every  theory  of  govern 
ment,  where  one  of  these  exist,  the  others  exist. 
Under  our  constitution  they  are  divided  into  three 
parts,  and  apportioned  among  three  coordinate  bodies. 
Whoever  denies  one  of  these  must  deny  them  all. 

If  the  government  of  the  United  States,  therefore, 
has  no  right  to  legislate  for  the  territories,  it  has  no 
right  to  adjudicate  for  the  territories  ;  if  it  has  no  right 
to  adjudicate,  then  it  has  no  right  to  enforce  the  decis 
ions  of  the  judicial  tribunals.  These  rights  must 
stand  or  fall  together.  He  who  takes  from  this  gov 
ernment  the  law-making  power,  in  regard  to  territories, 
strikes,  also  the  balances  of  justice  from  the  hands  of 
the  judge,  and  the  mace  of  authority  from  those  of 
the  executive.  There  is  no  escape  from  this  conclu 
sion.  The  constitution  gives  no  more  authority  to 
adjudge  suits  in  the  territories,  or  to  execute  the  decis 
ions  of  the  territorial  courts,  than  it  does  to  legislate. 
If  Congress  has  no  power  over  territory,  only  as  land, 
then  what  does  this  land  want  of  judges  and  marshals  ? 


24 

Is  it  not  obvious,  then,  that  this  new  reading  of  the 
constitution  sets  aside  the  whole  legislative,  judicial, 
and  executive  administration  of  this  government  over 
territories,  since  the  adoption  of  the  constitution  ?  It 
makes  the  whole  of  it  invalid.  The  Presidents,  all 
members  of  Congress,  all  judges  upon  the  bench,  have 
been  in  a  dream  for  the  last  sixty  years,  and  are  now 
waked  up  and  recalled  to  their  senses  by  the  charm  of 
a  newly-discovered  reading  of  the  constitution. 

Hitherto,  sir,  I  have  not  directed  my  remarks  to  the 
actual  legislation  by  Congress  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
in  the  North-western  Territory,  so  called.  That  terri 
tory  was  consecrated  to  freedom  by  the  ordinance  of 
1787.  It  has  been  said  that  the  Confederation  had  no 
power  to  pass  such  an  ordinance.  But  whether  this 
be  so  or  not,  is  immaterial,  for  Congress  has  ratified 
the  ordinance  again  and  again.  The  first  Congress  at 
its  first  session  passed  an  act  whose  preamble  is  as  fol 
lows  :  "  Whereas,  in  order  that  the  ordinance  of  the 
United  States,  in  Congress  assembled,  for  the  govern 
ment  of  the  territory  north-west  of  the  river  Ohio,  may 
continue  to  have  full  effect,"  &c.  It  then  proceeds  to 
modify  some  parts  of  the  ordinance,  and  to  adopt  all 
the  rest.* 

In  the  second  section  of  the  act  of  1800,  chaper  41, 
establishing  the  Indiana  Territory,  it  is  expressly  pro 
vided  that  its  government  shall  be  "  in  all  respects  sim 
ilar  to  that  provided  by  the  ordinance  of  1787." 

In  the  act  of  1802,  chapter  40,  section  5,  author 
izing  Ohio  to  form  a  constitution  and  state  government, 
this  ordinance  of  1787  is  three  times  referred  to  as  a 
valid  and  existing  engagement,  arid  it  has  always  been 
held  to  be  so  by  the  courts  of  Ohio. 

So  in  the  act  of  1816,  chapter  57,  section  4,  author- 

*  Mr.  Madison  thought  the  original  ordinance  to  be  clearly  invalid. 
See  Federalist,  No.  38.  It  is  just  as  clear  that  he  thought  the  consti 
tution  gave  validity  to  it.  See  Federalist,  No.  43. 


25 

izing  the  erection  of  Indiana  into  a  state,  the  ordinance 
is  again  recognized,  and  is  made  a  part  of  the  funda 
mental  law  of  the  state. 

So  in  the  act  of  1818,  chapter  67,  section  4,  author 
izing  Illinois  to  become  a  state. 

So  in  the  act  of  1805,  chapter  5,  section  2,  estab 
lishing  the  Territory  of  Michigan. 

So  of  Wisconsin.     See  act  of  1847,  chapter  53,  in 
connection  with  the  constitution  of  Wisconsin. 

But  all  this  is  tedious  and  superfluous.  I  have  gone 
into  this  detail,  because  I  understand  the  gentleman 
from  Virginia  [Mr.  BAYLY]  to  have  denied  this  adop 
tion  and  these  recognitions  of  the  ordinance.  I  hazard 
nothing  in  saying  that  the  ordinance  of  1787  has  been 
expressly  referred  to  as  valid,  or  expressly  or  impliedly 
reenacted,  a  dozen  times,  by  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States ;  and,  in  the  state  courts  of  Ohio,  Illinois,  Lou 
isiana,  Mississippi,  arid  Missouri,  it  has  been  adjudged 
to  be  constitutional.  How,  then,  is  it  possible  for  any 
mind,  amenable  to  legal  rules  for  the  decision  of  legal 
questions,  to  say  that  Congress  cannot  legislate,  or  has 
not  legislated,  (except  once  or  twice  inadvertently,)  on 
the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  territories  ? 
•  On  this  part  of  the  argument,  I  have  only  a  con 
cluding  remark  to  submit.  The  position  I  am  contest 
ing  affirms  generally  that  Congress  cannot  legislate 
upon  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  territories.  The 
inexpediency  of  so  legislating  is  further  advocated  on 
the  ground  that  it  is  repugnant  to  democratical  princi 
ples  to  debar  the  inhabitants  of  the  territories  from 
governing  themselves.  Must  the  free  men  of  the  ter 
ritories,  it  is  asked,  have  laws  made  for  them  by  oth 
ers  ?  No  !  It  is  anti-democratic,  monarchical,  intol 
erable.  All  men  have  the  right  of  self-government ; 
and  this  principle  holds  true  with  regard  to  the  inhab 
itants  of  territories,  as  well  as  the  inhabitants  of 
states. 

3 


26 

Now,  if  these  declarations  were  a  sincere  and  honest 
affirmation  of  human  rights,  I  should  respect  them  and 
honor  their  authors.  Did  this  doctrine  grow  out  of  a. 
jealousy  for  the  rights  of  man,  a  fear  of  usurpation,  an 
assertion  of  the  principle  of  self-government,  I  should 
sympathize  with  it,  while  I  denied  its  legality.  But, 
sir,  it  is  the  most  painful  aspect  of  this  whole  case, 
that  the  very  object  and  purpose  of  claiming  these 
ample  and  sovereign  rights  for  the  inhabitants  of  the 
territories  is,  that  they  may  deny  all  rights  to  a  por 
tion  of  their  fellow-beings  within  them.  Enlarge, 
aggrandize,  the  rights  of  the  territorial  settlers !  And 
why  ?  Because,  by  so  doing,  you  enable  them  to  abol 
ish  all  rights  for  a  whole  class  of  human  beings.  This 
claim,  then,  is  not  made  for  the  purpose  of  making 
freemen  more  free,  but  for  making  slaves  more  en 
slaved.  The  reason  for  denying  to  Congress  the  power 
to  legislate  for  the  territories,  is  the  fear  that  Congress 
will  prevent  slavery  in  them.  The  reason  for  claim 
ing  the  supreme  right  of  legislation  for  the  territorial 
inhabitants,  is  the  hope  that  they  will  establish  slavery 
within  their  borders.  Must  not  that  democracy  be 
false  which  begets  slavery  as  its  natural  offspring? 

If  it  has  now  been  demonstrated  that  Congress  has 
uniformly  legislated,  and  can  legislate,  on  the  subject 
of  slavery  in  the  territories,  I  proceed  to  consider  the 
next  question.  Is  it  expedient  to  exclude  slavery  from 
them  ? 

Here,  on  the  threshold,  we  are  confronted  with  the 
claim  that  the  gates  shall  be  thrown  wide  open  to  the 
admission  of  slavery  into  the  broad  western  world  ; 
because,  otherwise,  the  southern  or  slave  states  would 
be  debarred  from  enjoying  their  share  of  the  common 
property  of  the  Union. 

I  meet  this  claim  with  a  counter-claim.  If,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  consecration  of  this  soil  to  freedom  will 


27 

exclude  the  slaveholders  of  the  south,  it  is  just  as  true, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  the  desecration  of  it  to  slavery 
will  exclude  the  freemen  of  the  north.  We,  at  the 
north,  know  too  well  the  foundations  of  worldly  pros 
perity  and  happiness ;  we  know  too  well  the  sources 
of  social  and  moral  welfare,  ever  voluntarily  to  blend 
our  fortunes  with  those  of  a  community  where  slavery 
is  tolerated.  If  our  demand  for  free  territory,  then, 
excludes  them,  their  demand  for  slave  territory  ex 
cludes  us.  Not  one  in  five  hundred  of  the  freemen 
of  the  north  could  ever  be  induced  to  take  his  family 
and  domicile  himself  in  a  territory  where  slavery  exists. 
They  know  that  the  institution  would  impoverish  their 
estate,  demoralize  their  children,  and  harrow  their  own 
consciences  with  an  ever-present  sense  of  guilt,  until 
those  consciences,  by  force  of  habit  and  induration, 
should  pass  into  that  callous  and  more  deplorable  state, 
where  continuous  crime  could  be  committed  without 
the  feeling  of  remorse. 

Sir,  let  me  read  a  passage  from  Dr.  Channing,  writ 
ten  in  1798,  —  fifty  years  ago,  —  when,  at  the  early 
age  of  nineteen,  he  lived  for  some  time  in  Richmond, 
Virginia,  as  a  tutor  in  a  private  family.  While  there, 
he  wrote  a  letter,  of  which  the  following  is  an  ex 
tract  :  — 

"  There  is  one  object  here  which  always  depresses  me.  It 
is  slavery.  This  alone  would  prevent  me  from  ever  settling 
in  Virginia.  Language  cannot  express  my  detestation  of  it._ 
Master  and  slave  !  Nature  never  made  such  a  distinction,  or 
established  such  a  relation.  Man,  when  forced  to  substitute 
the  will  of  another  for  his  own,  ceases  to  be  a  moral  agent  ; 
his  title  to  the  name  of  man  is  extinguished  ;  he  becomes  a 
mere  machine  in  the  hands  of  his  oppressor.  No  empire  is 
so  valuable  as  the  empire  of  one's  self.  No  right  is  so  insep 
arable  from  humanity,  and  so  necessary  to  the  improvement 
of  our  species,  as  the  right  of  exerting  the  powers  which 
nature  has  given  us  in  the  pursuit  of  any  and  of  every  good 
which  we  can  obtain  without  doing  injury  to  others.  Should 


28 

you  desire  it,  I  will  give  you  some  idea  of  the  situation  and 
character  of  the  negroes  in  Virginia.  It  is  a  subject  so  de 
grading  to  humanity,  that  I  cannot  dwell  on  it  with  pleasure. 
I  should  be  obliged  to  show  you  every  vice,,  heightened  by 
every  meanness,  and  added  to  every  misery.  The  influence 
of  slavery  on  the  whites  is  almost  as  fatal  as  on  the  blacks 
themselves." 

This  was  written  fifty  years  ago,  by  a  young  man 
from  New  England,  only  nineteen  years  old.  I  know- 
that,  on  all  subjects  of  philanthropy  and  ethics,  Dr. 
Channing  was  half  a  century  in  advance  of  his  age. 
But  the  sentiments  he  expressed  on  this  subject,  at  the 
close  of  the  last  century,  are  now  the  prevalent,  deep- 
seated  feelings  of  northern  men,  excepting,  perhaps,  a 
few  cases  where  these  feelings  have  been  corrupted  by 
interest. 

I  repeat,  then,  that  the  north  cannot  shut  out  the 
south  from  the  new  territories  by  a  law  for  excluding 
slavery,  more  effectually  than  the  south  will  shut  out 
the  north  by  the  fact  of  introducing  slavery.  Even 
admitting,  then,  that  the  law  is  equal  for  both  north 
and  south,  I  will  show  that  all  the  equity  is  on  the 
side  of  the  north. 

Sir,  from  the  establishment  of  our  independence  by 
the  treaty  of  1783  to  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the 
constitution,  and  for  years  afterwards,  no  trace  is  to 
be  found  of  an  intention  to  enlarge  the  bounds  of  our 
republic  ;  and  it  is  well  known  that  the  treaty  of  1803, 
for  acquiring  Louisiana,  was  acknowledged  by  Mr. 
Jefferson,  who  made  it,  to  be  unconstitutional.  In 
1787,  the  Magna  Charta  of  perpetual  freedom  was  se 
cured  to  the  North-west  Territory.  But  the  article  ex 
cluding  slavery  from  it  had  an  earlier  date  than  1787. 
On  the  1st  of  March,  1784,  Congress  voted  to  accept 
a  session  from  the  state  of  Virginia  of  her  claim  to 
the  territory  north-west  of  the  Ohio  river.  The  sub 
ject  of  providing  a  government  for  this  and  other  ter- 


29 

ritory  was  referred  to  a  committee  consisting  of  Mr. 
Jefferson,  Mr.  Chase  of  Maryland,  and  Mr.  Ho  well  of 
Rhode  Island.  On  the  19th  of  April,  1784,  their  re 
port  was  considered.  That  report  contained  the 
following  ever-memorable  clause  :  — 

"  That  after  tho  year  1800,  of  the  Christian  era,  there  shall 
be  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  in  any  of  the 
said  states,  [they  were  spoken  of  as  states,  because  it  was 
always  contemplated  to  erect  the  territories  into  states,]  other 
wise  than  in  punishment  of  crimes  whereof  the  party  shall 
have  been  convicted  to  have  been  personally  guilty." 

Sir,  we  hear  much  said  in  our  day  of  the  Wilmot 
proviso  against  slavery.  In  former  years,  great  credit 
has  been  given  to  Mr.  Nathan  Dane,  of  Massachusetts, 
for  originating  the  sixth  article,  (against  slavery),  in  the 
ordinance  of  1787.  Sir,  it  is  a  misnomer  to  call  this 
restrictive  clause  the  "  Wilmot  proviso."  It  is  the 
Jefferson  proviso,  and  Mr.  Jefferson  should  have  the 
honor  of  it;  and  would  to  Heaven  that  our  southern 
friends,  who  kneel  so  devoutly  at  his  shrine,  could  be 
animated  by  that  lofty  spirit  of  freedom,  that  love  for 
the  rights  of  man,  which  alone  can  make  their  acts  of 
devotion  sacred. 

But  what  is  most  material  to  be  observed  here  is, 
that  the  plan  of  government  reported  by  Mr.  Jefferson, 
and  acted  upon  by  the  Congress  at  that  time,  embraced 
all  the  "  western  territory."  It  embraced  all  the  "terri 
tory  ceded,  or  to  be  ceded,  by  individual  states  to  the 
United  States."  —  See  Journals  of  Congress,  April  %3, 
1784.  If,  then,  we  leave  out  Kentucky  and  Tennes 
see,  as  being  parts  of  Virginia  and  North  Carolina,  all 
the  residue  of  the  territory  north  or  south  of  the  Ohio 
river,  within  the  treaty  limits  of  the  United  States,  was 
intended,  by  the  "Jefferson  proviso,"  to  be  rescued 
from  the  doom  of  slavery.  For  that  proviso  there 
were  sixteen  votes,  and  only  seven  against  it.  Yet  so 
singularly  were  these  seven  votes  distributed,  and  so 
3* 


30 

large  a  majority  of  the  states  did  it  require  to  pass 
an  act,  that  it  was  lost.  The  whole  of  the  rep 
resentation  from  seven  states  voted  for  it  unani 
mously.  Only  two  states  voted  unanimously  against 
it.  Had  but  one  of  Mr.  Jefferson's  colleagues  voted 
with  him,  and  had  Mr.  Spaight,  of  North  Carolina, 
voted  for  it,  the  restrictive  clause  in  the  report  would 
have  stood.  But  a  minority  of  seven  from  the  slave- 
holding  states  controlled  a  majority  of  sixteen  from  the 
free  states,  —  ominous  even  at  that  early  day  of  a  fate 
that  has  now  relentlessly  pursued  us  for  sixty  years. 

That  vote  was  certainly  no  more  than  a  fair  repre 
sentation  of  the  feeling  of  the  country  against  slavery 
at  that  time.  It  was  with  such  a  feeling  that  the 
"  compromises  of  the  constitution,"  as  they  are  called, 
were  entered  into.  Nobody  dreaded  or  dreamed  of 
the  extension  of  slavery  beyond  its  then  existing  lim 
its.  Yet,  behold  its  aggressive  march  !  Besides  Ken 
tucky  and  Tennessee,  which  I  omit,  for  reasons  before 
intimated,  seven  new  slave  states  have  been  added  to 
the  Union,  —  Mississippi,  Alabama,  Missouri,  Arkansas, 
Louisiana,  Florida,  and  Texas, — the  last  five  out  of 
territory  not  belonging  to  us  at  the  adoption  of  the 
constitution  ;  while  only  one  free  state,  Iowa,  has  been 
added  during  all  this  time,  out  of  such  newly-acquired 
territory.* 

*  Here  Mr.  HILLIA.RD,  of  Alabama,  rose  to  ask  if  the  south,  by  the 
Missouri  compromise,  had  not  surrendered  its  right  to  carry  slavery 
north  of  the  compromise  line  ?  His  question  \yas  not  understood.  If 
it  had  been,  it  would  have  been  replied,  that  the  existence  of  slavery 
at  New  Orleans,  and  a  few  other  places  in  Louisiana,  at  the  time  of 
the  treaty  with  France,  by  no  means  established  the  right  to  carry  it 
to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  if  the  treaty  extended  so  far.  Slavery  being 
against  natural  right,  can  only  exist  by  virtue  of  positive  law,  backed 
by  force  sufficient  to  protect  it.  It  could  not  lawfully  exist,  therefore, 
in  any  part  of  Louisiana,  which  had  not  been  laid  out,  organized,  and 
subjected  to  the  civil  jurisdiction  of  the  government.  Such  was  not 
the  case  with  any  part  of  the  territory  north  of  the  compromise  line, 
and  therefore  nothing  was  surrendered.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the 
formation  of  the  territorial  governments  of  Orleans,  Missouri,  Arkau- 


31 

But  there  is  another  fact,  which  shows  that  the 
slaveholders  have  already  had  their  full  share  of  terri 
tory,  however  wide  the  boundaries  of  this  country  may 
hereafter  become. 

I  have  seen  the  number  of  actual  slaveholders  va 
riously  estimated  ;  but  the  highest  estimate  I  have 
ever  seen  is  three  hundred  thousand.  Allowing  six 
persons  to  a  family,  this  number  would  represent  a  white 
population  of  eighteen  hundred  thousand. 

Mr.  GAYLE,  of  Alabama,  interrupted  and  said  :  If  the 
gentleman  from  Massachusetts  has  been  informed  that 
the  number  of  slaveholders  is  only  300,000,  then  I 
will  tell  him  his  information  is  utterly  false. 

Mr.  MANN.  Will  the  gentleman  tell  me  how  many 
th^ere  are  ? 

Mr.  GAYLE.     Ten  times  as  many. 

Mr.  MANN.  Ten  times  as  many !  Ten  times 
300,000  is  3,000,000  ;  and  allowing  six  persons  to  each 
family,  this  would  give  a  population  of  18,000,000 
directly  connected  with  slaveholding  ;  while  the  whole 
free  population  of  the  south,  in  1840,  was  considerably 
less  than  five  millions ! 

Mr.  MEADE,  of  Virginia,  here  interposed  and  said, 
that  where  the  father  or  mother  owned  slaves,  they  were 
considered  the  joint  property  of  the  family.  I  think, 
if  you  include  the  grown  and  the  young,  there  are 
about  three  millions  interested  in  slave  property. 

Mr.  MANN  resumed.  My  data  lead  me  to  believe  that 
the  number  does  not  now  exceed  two  millions  ;  but,  at 
the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  the  num 
ber  directly  connected  with  slaveholding  must  have 
been  less  than  one  million.  Yet  this  one  million  have 


sas,  and  Florida,  a  vast  extent  of  country  was  surrendered  to  slavery. 
And  this  is  independent  of  the  question  whether  Congress,  by  the 
constitution,  has  any  more  right  to  establish  slavery  any  where  than  it 
has  to  establish  an  inquisition,  create  an  order  of  nobility,  or  anoint  a 
king. 


32 

already  managed  to  acquire  the  broad  States  of  Mis 
souri,  Arkansas,  Louisiana,  Florida,  and  Texas,  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  treaty  of  1783 ;  when,  at  the  time 
the  "  compromises  of  the  constitution  "  were  entered 
into,  not  one  of  the  parties  supposed  that  we  should 
ever  acquire  territory  beyond  those  limits.  And  this 
has  been  done  for  the  benefit,  (if  it  be  a  benefit,) 
of  that  one  million  of  slaveholders,  against  what  is  now 
a  free  population  of  fifteen  millions.  And,  in  addition 
to  this,  it  is  to  be  considered  that  the  non-slaveholding 
population  of  the  slave  states  have  as  direct  and  deep 
an  interest  as  any  part  of  the  country,  adverse  to  the 
extension  of  slavery.  If  all  our  new  territory  be 
doomed  to  slavery,  where  can  the  non-slaveholders  of 
the  slaveholding  states  emigrate  to  ?  Are  they  not  to 
be  considered  ?  Has  one  half  the  population  of  the 
slaveholding  states  rights,  which  are  paramount,  not 
only  to  the  rights  of  the  other  half,  but  to  the  rights 
of  all  the  free  states  besides  ?  for  such  is  the  claim. 
No,  sir.  I  say  that,  if  slavery  were  no  moral  or  politi 
cal  evil,  yet,  according  to  all  principles  of  justice  and 
equity,  the  slaveholders  have  already  obtained  their 
full  share  of  territory,  though  all  the  residue  of  this 
continent  were  to  be  annexed  to  the  Union,  and  we 
were  to  become,  in  the  insane  language  of  the  day, 
u  an  ocean-bound  republic." 

I  now  proceed  to  consider  the  nature  and  effects  of 
slavery,  as  a  reason  why  new-born  communities  should 
be  exempted  from  it.  First,  let  me  treat  of  its  eco 
nomical  or  financial,  and,  secondly,  of  its  moral 
aspects. 

Though  slaves  are  said  to  be  property,  they  are  the 
preventers,  the  wasters,  the  antagonists  of  property. 
So  far  from  facilitating  the  increase  of  individual  or 
national  wealth,  slavery  retards  both.  It  blasts  worldly 
prosperity.  Other  things  being  equal,  a  free  people 
will  thrive  and  prosper,  in  a  mere  worldly  sense,  more 


33 

than  a  people  divided  into  masters  and  slaves.  Were 
we  so  constituted  as  to  care  for  nothing,  to  aspire  to 
nothing,  beyond  mere  temporal  well  being,  this  well 
being  would  counsel  us  to  abolish  slavery  wherever  it 
exists,  and  to  repel  its  approach  wherever  it  threatens. 

Enslave  a  man,  and  you  destroy  his  ambition,  his 
enterprise,  his  capacity.  In  the  constitution  of  human 
nature,  the  desire  of  bettering  one's  condition  is  the 
mainspring  of  effort.  The  first  touch  of  slavery  snaps 
this  spring.  The  slave  does  not  participate  in  the 
value  of  the  wealth  he  creates.  All  he  earns  another 
seizes.  A  free  man  labors,  not  only  to  improve  his 
own  condition,  but  to  better  the  condition  of  his 
children.  The  mighty  impulse  of  parental  affection 
repays  for  diligence,  and  makes  exertion  sweet.  The 
slave's  heart  never  beats  with  this  high  emotion. 
However  industrious  and  frugal  he  may  be,  he  has 
nothing  to  bequeath  to  his  children,  —  or  nothing  save 
the  sad  bonds  he  himself  has  worn.  Fear  may  make 
him  work,  but  hope  —  never.  When  he  moves  his 
tardy  limbs,  it  is  because  of  the  suffering  that  goads  him 
from  behind,  and  not  from  the  bright  prospects  that 
beckon  him  forward  in  the  race. 

What  would  a  slave  owner  at  the  south  think,  should 
he  come  to  Massachusetts,  and  there  see  a  farmer  seize 
upon  his  hired  man,  call  in  a  surgeon,  and  cut  off  all 
the  flexor  muscles  of  his  arms  and  legs  ?  I  do  not  ask 
what  he  would  think  of  his  humanity,  but  what  would 
he  think  of  his  sanity?  Yet  the  planter  does  more 
tli an  this  when  he  makes  a  man  a  slave.  He  cuts 
deeper  than  the  muscles ;  he  destroys  the  spirit  that 
moves  the  muscles. 

In  all  ages  of  the  world,  among  all  nations,  wherever 
the  earnings  of  the  laborer  have  been  stolen  from 
him,  his  energies  have  gone  with  his  earnings.  Under 
the  villeinage  system  of  England,  the  villeins  were  a 
low,  idle,  spiritless  race ;  dead  to  responsibility ;  grov- 


34 

elling  in  their  desires  j  resistant  of  labor  ;  without  en  • 
terprise  ;  without  foresight.  This  principle  is  now 
exemplified  in  the  landlord  and  tenant  system  of 
Ireland.  If  a  tenant  is  to  be  no  better  off  for  the  im 
provements  he  makes  on  an  estate,  he  will  not  make 
the  improvements.  Look  at  the  seigniories  of  New 
York,  — the  anti-rent  districts  as  they  are  now  called  ; 
—  every  man  acquainted  with  the  subject  knows  that 
both  people  and  husbandry  are  half  a  century  behind 
the  condition  of  contiguous  fee-simple  proprietorships. 
All  history  illustrates  the  principle,  that  when  property 
is  insecure,  it  will  not  be  earned.  If  a  despot  can 
seize  and  confiscate  the  property  of  his  subject  at 
pleasure,  the  subject  will  not  acquire  property,  and 
thereby  give  to  himself  the  conspicuousness  that  in 
vites  the  plunder.  And  if  this  be  so  when  property  is 
merely  insecure,  what  must  be  the  effect  when  a  man 
has  no  property  whatever  in  his  earnings  ?  Who  does 
not  know  that  a  slave,  who  can  rationally  hope  to  pur 
chase  his  freedom,  will  do  all  the  work  he  ever  did 
before,  and  earn  his  freedom-money  besides  ?  Slavery, 
therefore,  though  claiming  to  be  a  kind  of  property,  is 
the  bane  of  property  ;  and  the  more  slaves  there  are 
found  in  the  inventory  of  a  nation's  wealth,  the  less  in 
value  will  the  aggregate  of  that  inventory  be. 

This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  slave  labor  is  so 
much  less  efficient  than  free  labor.  The  former  can 
never  compete  with  the  latter ;  and  while  the  greater 
service  is  performed  with  cheerfulness,  the  smaller  is 
extorted  by  fear.  Just  as  certain  as  that  the  locomo 
tive  can  outrun  the  horse,  and  the  lightning  outspeed 
the  locomotive,  just  so  certain  is  it  that  he  who  is  ani 
mated  by  the  hopes  and  the  rewards  of  freedom  will 
outstrip  the  disheartened  and  fear-driven  slave. 

The  intelligent  freeman  can  afford  to  live  well,  dress 
decently,  and  occupy  a  comfortable  tenement.  A 
scanty  subsistence,  a  squalid  garb,  a  mean  and  dilapi- 


35 

dated  hovel,  proclaim  the  degradation  of  the  slave. 
The  slave  states  gain  millions  of  dollars  every  year 
from  the  privations,  the  mean  food,  clothing,  and  shelter 
to  which  the  slaves  are  subjected  ;  and  yet  they  grow 
rich  less  rapidly  than  states  where  millions  of  dollars 
are  annually  expended  for  the  comforts  and  conven 
iences  of  the  laborer.  More  is  lost  in  production  than 
is  gained  by  privation. 

A  universal  concomitant  of  slavery  is,  that  it  makes 
white  labor  disreputable.  Being  disreputable,  it  is 
shunned.  The  pecuniary  loss  resulting  from  this  is 
incalculable.  Dry  up  the  myriad  headsprings  of  the 
Mississippi,  and  where  would  be  the  mighty  volume 
of  waters  which  now  bear  navies  on  their  bosom,  and 
lift  the  ocean  itself  above  its  level,  by  their  outpouring 
Hood  ?  Abolish  those  sources  of  wealth,  which  consist 
in  the  personal  industry  of  every  man,  and  of  each 
member  of  every  man's  family,  arid  that  wide-spread 
thrift,  and  competence,  and  elegance,  which  are  both 
the  reward  and  the  stimulus  of  labor,  will  be  abolished 
^with  them.  Forego  the  means,  and  you  forfeit  the 
end.  You  must  use  the  instrument  if  you  would  have 
the  product.  Nothing  but  the  feeling  of  independence, 
the  conscious  security  of  working  for  one's  self  and 
one's  family,  will,  in  the  present  state  of  the  world, 
make  labor  profitable. 

I  know  it  has  been  recently  said  in  this  capital,  ami 
by  high  authority,  that,  with  the  exception  of  menial 
services,  it  is  not  disreputable  at  the  south  for  a  white 
man  to  labor.  There  are  two  ways,  each  independent 
of  the  other,  to  disprove  this  assertion.  One  of  them 
consists  in  the  testimony  of  a  host  of  intelligent  wit 
nesses  acquainted  with  the  condition  of  things  at  the 
south.  I  might  quote  page  after  page  from  various 
sources  ;  but,  as  the  assertion  comes  from  a  gentleman 
belonging  to  South  Carolina,  [Mr.  CALHOUN,  of  the 
Senate,]  I  will  meet  it  with  the  statement  of  another 


36 

gentleman  belonging  to  the  same  state.  I  refer  to  Mr. 
William  Gregg,  of  Charleston,  a  gentleman  who  is  ex 
tensively  acquainted  with  the  social  condition  of  men, 
both  north  and  south. 

In  that  state,  according  to  the  last  census,  there 
were  about  150,000  free  whites  over  twelve  years  of 
age.  "  Of  this  class,"  says  Mr.  Gregg,  "  fifty  thou 
sand  are  non-producers."*  I  suppose  South  Carolina 
to  be  as  thrifty  a  slave  state  as  there  is,  perhaps  ex 
cepting  Georgia;  yet  here  is  one  third  part  of  the  pop 
ulation,  old  enough  to  work  and  able  to  work,  who  are 
idle,  and  of  course  vicious,  —  non-producers,  but  the 
worst  kind  of  consumers. 

Another  answer  to  the  above  assertion  is,  that  if 
white  labor  were  reputable  at  the  south,  and  white 
men  were  industrious,  the  whole  country  would  be  a 
garden,  —  a  terrestrial  paradise,  —  so  far  as  neatness, 
abundance,  and  beauty  are  concerned.  Where  are  the 
RESULTS  of  this  respected  and  honored  white  labor  1 
In  a  country  where  few  expenses  are  necessary  to 
ward  off  the  rigors  of  winter ;  where  the  richest  sta 
ples  of  the  world  are  produced ;  where  cattle  and 
flocks  need  but  little  shelter,  and  sometimes  none ;  if 
man  superadded  his  industry  to  the  bounties  of  nature, 
want  would  be  wholly  unknown,  competence  would 
give  place  to  opulence,  and  the  highest  decorations  of 
art  would  mingle  with  the  glowing  beauties  of  nature. 

But  hear  Mr.  Gregg  :  — 

"  My  recent  visit  to  the  northern  states  has  fully  satisfied 
me  that  the  true  secret  of  our  difficulties  lies  in  the  want  of 
energy  on  the  part  of  our  capitalists,  and  ignorance  and  lazi 
ness  on  the  part  of  those  who  ought  to  labor.  We  need 
never  look  for  thrift  while  we  permit  our  immense  timber  for 
ests,  granite  quarries,  and  mines  to  lie  idle,  and  supply  our 
selves  with  hewn  granite,  pine  boards,  laths,  shingles,  &c., 

*  Essays  on  Domestic  Industry,  or  an  Inquiry  into  the  Expediency 
of  establishing  Cotton  Manufactories  in  South  Carolina,  1845. 


37 

furnished  by  the  lazy  dogs  of  the  north.  Ah  !  worse  than 
this ;  we  see  our  back-country  farmers,  many  of  whom 
are  too  lazy  to  mend  a  broken  gate,  or  repair  the  fences  to 
protect  their  crops  from  the  neighboring  stock,  actually  sup 
plied  with  their  axe,  hoe,  and  broom  handles,  pitchforks, 
rakes,  &c.,  by  the  indolent  mountaineers  of  New  Hampshire 
and  Massachusetts.  The  time  was,  when  every  old  woman 
had  her  gourd,  from  which  the  country  gardens  were  supplied 
with  seed.  We  now  find  it  more  convenient  to  permit  this 
duty  to  devolve  on  our  careful  friends,  the  Yankees.  Even 
our  boat  oars,  and  handspikes  for  rolling  logs,  arc  furnished, 
ready-made,  to  our  hand,"  &c.  "  Need  I  add,  to  further  ex 
emplify  our  excessive  indolence,  that  the  Charleston  market 
is  supplied  with  fish  and  wild  game  by  northern  men,  who 
come  out  here  as  regularly  as  the  winter  comes,  for  this  pur 
pose,  and  from  our  own  waters  and  forests  often  realize,  in 
the  course  of  one  winter,  a  sufficiency  to  purchase  a  small 
farm  in  New  England."  —  Essays,  page  8. 

Again  :  — 

"  It  is  only  necessary  to  travel  over  the  sterile  mountains  of 
Connecticut,  Massachusetts,  Vermont,  and  New  Hampshire,  to 
learn  the  true  secret  of  our  difficulties,"  —  "  to  learn  the  differ 
ence  between  indolence  and  industry,  extravagance  and  econo 
my.  We  there  see  the  scenery  which  would  take  the  place  of 
our  unpainted  mansions,  dilapidated  cabins,  with  mud  chimneys, 
and  no  windows,  broken-down  rail  fences,  fields  overgrown 
with  weeds,  and  thrown  away  half  exhausted,  to  be  taken  up  by 
pine  thickets  ;  beef  cattle  unprotected  from  the  inclemency  of 
winter,  and  so  poor  as  barely  to  preserve  life." — .Essays,  page  7. 

And  again :  — 

"  Shall  we  pass  unnoticed  the  thousands  of  poor,  ignorant, 
degraded  white  people  among  us,  who,  in  this  land  of  plenty, 
live  in  comparative  nakedness  and  starvation  ?  Many  a  one 
is  reared  in  proud  South  Carolina,  from  birth  to  manhood, 
who  has  never  passed  a  month  in  which  he  has  not,  some 
part  of  the  time,  been  stinted  for  meat.  Many  a  mother  is 
there  who  will  tell  you  that  her  children  are  but  scantily  sup 
plied  with  bread,  and  much  more  scantily  with  meat,  and  if 
4 


38 

they  be  clad  with  comfortable  raiment,  it  is  at  the  expense 
of  these  scanty  allowances  of  food.  These  may  be  startling 
statements,  but  they  are  nevertheless  true ;  and  if  not  believed 
in  Charleston,  the  members  of  our  legislature,  who  have  trav 
ersed  the  state  in  electioneering  campaigns,  can  attest  their 
truth."  —  Essays,  page  22. 

After  such  statements  as  these  ;  after  the  testimony 
of  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  eye-witnesses ;  after  the 
proofs  furnished  by  the  aggregates  of  products,  pub 
lished  in  our  Patent  Office  Reports,  it  is  drawing  a  lit 
tle  too  heavily  on  our  credulity  to  say  that  the  white 
man  at  the  south  is  industrious.  Industry  manifests 
itself  by  its  results,  as  the  sun  manifests  itself  by 
shining. 

But  slavery  is  hostile  to  the  pecuniary  advancement 
of  the  community  in  another  way.  The  slave  must 
be  kept  in  ignorance.  He  must  not  be  educated,  lest 
with  education  should  come  a  knowledge  of  his  natu 
ral  rights,  and  the  means  of  escape  or  the  power  of 
vengeance.  To  secure  the  abolition  of  his  freedom, 
the  growth  of  his  mind  must  be  abolished.  His  edu 
cation,  therefore,  is  prohibited  by  statute  under  terrible 
penalties. 

Now,  a  man  is  weak  in  his  muscles  ;  he  is  strong 
only  in  his  faculties.  In  physical  strength  how  much 
superior  is  an  ox  or  a  horse  to  a  man  ;  in  fleetness,  the 
dromedary  or  the  eagle.  It  is  through  mental  strength 
only  that  man  becomes  the  superior  and  governor  of 
all  animals. 

It  was  not  the  design  of  Providence  that  the  work 
of  the  world  should  be  performed  by  muscular  strength. 
God  has  filled  the  earth  and  imbued  the  elements  with 
energies  of  greater  power  than  that  of  all  the  inhab 
itants  of  a  thousand  planets  like  ours.  Whence  come 
our  necessaries  and  our  luxuries  ?  —  those  comforts  and 
appliances  that  make  the  difference  between  a  house 
less,  wandering  tribe  of  Indians  in  the  far  west,  and  a 


39 

New  England  village.  They  do  not  come  wholly  or 
principally  from  the  original,  unassisted  strength  of 
the  human  arm,  but  from  the  employment,  through  in 
telligence  and  skill,  of  those  great  natural  forces  with 
which  the  bountiful  Creator  has  filled  every  part  of  the 
material  universe.  Caloric,  gravitation,  expansibility, 
compressibility,  electricity,  chemical  affinities  and  re 
pulsions,  spontaneous  velocities,  —  these  are  the  mighty 
agents  which  the  intellect  of  man  harnesses  to  the  car 
of  improvement.  The  application  of  water,  and  wind, 
and  steam,  to  the  propulsion  of  machinery,  and  to  the 
transportation  of  men  and  merchandise  from  place  to 
place,  has  added  ten  thousand  fold  to  the  actual  prod 
ucts  of  human  industry.  How  small  the  wheel  which 
the  stoutest  laborer  can  turn,  and  how  soon  will  he  be 
weary!  Compare  this  with  awheel  driving  a  thou 
sand  spindles  or  looms,  which  a  stream  of  water  can 
turn,  and  never  tire.  A  locomotive  will  take  five  hun 
dred  men,  and  bear  them  on  their  journey  hundreds 
of  miles  in  a  day.  Look  at  these  same  five  hundred 
men,  starting  from  the  same  point,  and  attempting  the 
same  distance,  with  all  the  pedestrian's  or  the  equestri 
an's  toil  and  tardiness.  The  cotton  mills  of  Massa 
chusetts  will  turn  out  more  cloth,  in  one  day,  than 
could  have  been  manufactured  by  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  eastern  continent  during  the  tenth  century. 
On  an  element  which,  in  ancient  times,  was  supposed 
to  be  exclusively  within  the  control  of  the  gods,  and 
where  it  was  deemed  impious  for  human  power  to  in 
trude,  even  there  the  gigantic  forces  of  nature,  which 
human  science  and  skill  have  enlisted  in  their  service, 
confront  and  overcome  the  raging  of  the  elements, — 
breasting  tempests  and  tides,  escaping  reefs  and  lee 
shores,  and  careering  triumphant  around  the  globe. 
The  velocity  of  winds,  the  weight  of  waters,  and  the 
rage  of  steam,  are  powers,  each  one  of  which  is  infi 
nitely  stronger  than  all  the  strength  of  all  the  nations 


40 

and  races  of  mankind,  were  it  all  gathered  into  a  sin 
gle  arm.  And  all  these  energies  are  given  us  on  one 
condition,  —  the  condition  of  intelligence,  that  is,  of 
education. 

Had  God  intended  that  the  work  of  the  world 
should  be  done  by  human  bones  and  sinews,  he  would 
have  given  us  an  arm  as  solid  and  strong  as  the  shaft 
of  a  steam  engine ;  and  enabled  us  to  stand,  day  and 
night,  and  turn  the  crank  of  a  steamship  while  sailing 
to  Liverpool  or  Calcutta.  Had  God  designed  the  hu 
man  muscles  to  do  the  work  of  the  world,  then,  in 
stead  of  the  ingredients  of  gunpowder  or  gun  cotton, 
and  the  expansive  force  of  heat,  he  would  have  given 
us  hands  which  could  take  a  granite  quarry  and  break 
its  solid  acres  into  suitable  and  symmetrical  blocks,  as 
easily  as  we  now  open  an  orange.  Had  he  intended 
us  for  bearing  burdens,  he  would  have  given  us  Atlan- 
tean  shoulders,  by  which  we  could  carry  the  vast 
freights  of  rail-car  and  steamship,  as  a  porter  carries 
his  pack.  He  would  have  given  us  lungs  by  which 
we  could  blow  fleets  before  us,  and  wings  to  sweep 
over  ocean  wastes.  But,  instead  of  iron  arms,  and 
Atlantean  shoulders,  and  the  lungs  of  Boreas,  he 
has  given  us  a  mind,  a  soul,  a  capacity  of  acquiring 
knowledge,  and  thus  of  appropriating  all  these  ener 
gies  of  nature  to  our  own  use.  Instead  of  a  telescopic 
and  microscopic  eye,  he  has  given  us  power  to  invent 
the  telescope  and  the  microscope.  Instead  of  ten  thou 
sand  fingers,  he  has  given  us  genius  inventive  of  the 
power  loom  and  the  printing  press.  Without  a  culti 
vated  intellect,  man  is  among  the  weakest  of  all  the 
dynamical  forces  of  nature;  with  a  cultivated  intellect, 
he  commands  them  all. 

And  now,  what  does  the  slave  maker  do  ?  He  abol 
ishes  this  mighty  power  of  the  intellect,  and  uses  only 
the  weak,  degraded,  and  half-animated  forces  of  the 
human  limbs.  A  thousand  slaves  may  stand  by  a  river, 


41 

and  to  them  it  is  only  an  object  of  fear  or  of  supersti 
tion.  An  educated  man  surpasses  the  ancient  idea  of 
a  river  god  ;  he  stands  by  the  Penobscot,  the  Kenne- 
bec,  the  Merrimack,  or  the  Connecticut  ;  he  com 
mands  each  of  them  to  do  more  work  than  could  be 
performed  by  a  hundred  thousand  men,  —  to  saw  tim 
ber,  to  make  cloth,  to  grind  corn,  —  and  they  obey. 
Ignorant  slaves  stand  upon  a  coal  mine,  and  to  them 
it  is  only  a  worthless  part  of  the  inanimate  earth.  An 
educated  man  uses  the  same  mine  to  print  a  million  of 
books.  Slaves  will  seek  to  obtain  the  same  crop  from 
the  same  field,  year  after  year,  though  the  pabulum 
of  that  crop  is  exhausted ;  the  educated  man,  with  his 
chemist's  eye,  sees  not  only  the  minutest  atoms  of 
earth,  but  the  imponderable  gases  that  permeate  it,  and 
he  is  rewarded  with  an  unbroken  succession  of  luxu 
riant  harvests. 

Nor  are  these  advantages  confined  to  those  depart 
ments  of  nature  where  her  mightiest  forces  are  brought 
into  requisition.  In  accomplishing  whatever  requires 
delicacy  and  precision,  nature  is  as  much  more  perfect 
than  man  as  she  is  more  powerful  in  whatever  requires 
strength.  Whether  in  great  or  in  small  operations,  all 
the  improvements  in  the  mechanical  and  the  useful 
arts  come  as  directly  from  intelligence  as  a  bird  comes 
out  of  a  shell,  or  the  beautiful  colors  of  a  flower  out 
of  sunshine.  The  slave  worker  is  forever  prying  at 
the  short  end  of  Nature's  lever,  and  using  the  back 
instead  of  the  edge  of  her  finest  instruments. 

Sir,  the  most  abundant  proof  exists,  derived  from  all 
departments  of  human  industry,  that  uneducated  labor 
is  comparatively  unprofitable  labor.  I  have  before  me 
the  statements  of  a  number  of  the  most  intelligent 
gentlemen  of  Massachusetts,  affirming  this  fact  as  the 
result  of  an  experience  extending  over  many  years. 
In  Massachusetts  we  have  no  native-born  child  wholly 
without  school  instruction ;  but  the  degrees  of  attain- 
4* 


42 

mentj  of  mental  development,  are  various.  Half  a 
dozen  years  ago,  the  Secretary  of  the  Massachusetts 
Board  of  Education  obtained  statements  from  large 
numbers  of  our  master  manufacturers,  authenticated 
from  the  books  of  their. respective  establishments,  and 
covering  a  series  of  years,  the  result  of  which  was, 
that  increased  wages  were  found  in  connection  with 
increased  intelligence,  just  as  certainly  as  increased 
heat  raises  the  mercury  in  the  thermometer.  Foreign 
ers,  and  those  coming  from  other  states,  who  made 
their  marks  when  they  receipted  their  bills,  earned  the 
least ;  those  who  had  a  moderate  or  limited  education 
occupied  a  middle  ground  on  the  pay-roll ;  while  the 
intelligent  young  women  who  worked  in  the  mills  in 
winter,  and  taught  schools  in  summer,  crowned  the 
list.  The  larger  capital,  in  the  form  of  intelligence, 
yielded  the  larger  interest  in  the  form  of  wages.  This 
inquiry  was  not  confined  to  manufactures,  but  was  ex 
tended  to  other  departments  of  business,  where  the 
results  of  labor  could  be  made  the  subject  of  exact 
measurement. 

This  is  universally  so.  The  mechanic  sees  it,  when 
he  compares  the  work  of  a  stupid  with  that  of  an 
awakened  mind.  The  traveller  sees  it,  when  he 
passes  from  an  educated  into  an  uneducated  nation. 
Sir,  I  have  seen  countries  in  Europe,  lying  side  by  side, 
where,  without  compass  or  chart,  without  bound  or 
landmark,  I  could  run  the  line  of  demarcation  between 
the  two,  by  the  broad,  legible  characters  which  igno 
rance  has  written  on  roads,  fields,  houses,  and  the  per 
sons  of  men,  women,  and  children,  on  one  side,  and 
which  knowledge  has  inscribed  on  the  other. 

This  difference  is  most  striking  in  the  mechanic 
arts,  but  it  is  clearly  visible  also  in  husbandry.  Not 
the  most  fertile  soil,  not  mines  of  silver  and  gold,  can 
make  a  nation  rich,  without  intelligence.  Who  ever 
had  a  more  fertile  soil  than  the  Egyptians  ?  Who 


43 

have  handled  more  silver  and  gold  than  the  Span 
iards  ?  The  universal  cultivation  of  the  mind  and 
heart  is  the  only  true  source  of  opulence;  —  the  culti 
vation  of  the  mind,  by  which  to  lay  hold  on  the  treas 
ures  of  nature;  the  cultivation  of  the  heart,  by  which 
to  devote  those  treasures  to  beneficent  uses.  Where 
this  cultivation  exists,  no  matter  how  barren  the  soil 
or  ungenial  the  clime,  there  comfort  and  competence 
will  abound;  for  it  is  the  intellectual  and  moral  condi 
tion  of  the  cultivator  that  impoverishes  the  soil  or 
makes  it  teem  with  abundance.  He  who  disobeys  the 
law  of  God  in  regard  to  the  culture  of  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  nature,  may  live  in  the  valley  of  the 
Nile,  but  he  can  rear  only  the  "  lean  kine  "  of  Pharaoh  ; 
but  he  who  obeys  the  highest  law  may  dwell  in  the 
cold  and  inhospitable  regions  of  Scotland  or  of  New 
England,  and  "  well-formed  and  fat-fleshed  kine  "  shall 
feed  on  all  his  meadows.  If  Pharaoh  will  be  a  task 
master,  and  will  not  let  the  bondmen  go  free,  the  corn 
in  his  field  shall  be  the  "  seven  thin  ears  blasted  by 
the  east  wind ;  "  but  if  he  will  obey  the  command 
ments  of  the  Lord,  then  behold  there  shall  be  "  seven 
ears  of  corn  upon  one  stalk,  all  rank  and  good."  Sir, 
the  sweat  of  a  slave  poisons  the  soil  upon  which  it 
falls  ;  his  breath  is  mildew  to  every  green  thing ;  his 
tear  withers  the  verdure  it  drops  upon. 

But  slavery  makes  the  general  education  of  the 
whites  impossible.  You  cannot  have  general  educa 
tion  without  Common  Schools.  Common  Schools  can 
not  exist  where  the  population  is  sparse.  Where 
slaves  till  the  soil,  or  do  the  principal  part  of  whatever 
work  is  done,  the  free  population  must  be  sparse. 
Slavery,  then,  by  an  inexorable  law,  denies  general 
education  to  the  whites.  The  providence  of  God  is 
just  and  retributive.  Create  a  serf  caste,  and  debar 
them  from  education,  and  you  necessarily  debar  a 
great  portion  of  the  privileged  class  from  education 


44 

also.  It  is  impossible,  in  the  present  state  of  things, 
or  in  any  state  of  things  which  can  be  foreseen,  to 
have  free  and  universal  education  in  a  slave  state. 
The  difficulty  is  insurmountable.  For  a  well-organ 
ized  system  of  Common  Schools,  there  should  be  two 
hundred  children,  at  least,  living  in  such  proximity  to 
each  other  that  the  oldest  of  them  can  come  together 
to  a  central  school.  It  is  not  enough  to  gather  from 
within  a  circle  of  half  a  dozen  miles'  diameter  fifty 
or  sixty  children  for  a  single  school.  This  brings  all 
ages  and  all  studies  into  the  same  room.  A  good  sys 
tem  requires  a  separation  of  school  children  into  four, 
or  at  least  into  three,  classes,  according  to  ages  and  at 
tainments.  Without  this  gradation,  a  school  is  bereft 
of  more  than  half  its  efficiency.  Now,  this  can  never 
be  done  in  an  agricultural  community  where  there  are 
two  classes  of  men  —  one  to  do  all  the  work,  and  the 
other  to  seize  all  the  profits.  With  New  England 
habits  of  industry,  and  with  that  diversified  labor 
which  would  be  sure  to  spring  from  intelligence,  the 
State  of  Virginia,  which  skirts  us  here  on  the  south, 
would  support  all  the  population  of  the  New  England 
states,  and  fill  them  with  abundance. 

Mr.  BAYLY.  We  have  as  great  a  population  as  New 
England  now. 

Mr.  MANN.    As  great  a  population  as  New  England  ! ! 

Mr.  BAYLY.     We  send  fifteen  representatives. 

[A  voice.  And  how  many  of  them  represent 
slaves  ?] 

Mr.  MANN.  Massachusetts  alone  sends  ten  repre 
sentatives. 

[A  voice.  And  the  rest  of  New  England  twenty- 
one  more.  | 

Mr.  MANN.  I  say,  sir,  the  single  State  of  Virginia 
could  support  in  abundance  the  whole  population  of 
New  England.  With  such  a  free  population,  the 
school  children  would  be  so  numerous  that  public 


45 

schools  might  be  opened  within  three  or  four  miles  of 
each  other  all  over  its  territory,  —  the  light  of  each 
of  which,  blending  with  its  neighboring  lights,  would 
illumine  the  whole  land.  They  would  be  schools, 
too,  in  point  of  cheapness,  within  every  man's  means. 
The  degrading  idea  of  pauper  schools  would  be  dis 
carded  forever.  But  what  is  the  condition  of  Virginia 
now  ?  One  quarter  part  of  all  its  adult  free  white 
population  are  unable  to  read  or  write,  arid  were  pro 
claimed  to  be  so  by  a  late  governor,  in  his  annual  mes 
sage,  without  producing  any  reform.  Their  remedy 
is  to  choose  a  governor  who  will  not  proclaim  such  a 
fact.  When  has  Virginia,  in  any  state  or  national 
election,  given  a  majority  equal  to  the  number  of  its 
voters  unable  to  read  or  write  ?  A  republican  govern 
ment  supported  by  the  two  pillars  of  Slavery  and  Ig 
norance  ! 

In  South  Carolina  there  is  also  a  fund  for  the  sup 
port  of  pauper  schools  ;  but  this  had  become  so  useless, 
and  was  so  disdained  by  its  objects,  that  a  late  governor 
of  the  state,  in  his  annual  message,  recommended  that 
it  should  be  withdrawn  from  them  altogether. 

Yet  in  many  of  the  slave  states  there  are  beautiful 
paper  systems  of  Common  Schools,  —  dead  laws  in  the 
statute  books,  —  and  the  census  tells  us  how  profitless 
they  have  been.  In  1840,  in  the  fifteen  slave  states 
and  territories,  there  were  only  201,085  scholars  at  the 
primary  schools.  In  the  same  class  of  schools  in  the 
free  states,  there  were  1,626,028, — eight  times  as 
many.  New  York  alone  had  502,367,  or  two  and  a 
half  times  as  many.  The  scholars  in  the  primary 
schools  of  Ohio  alone, outnumbered  all  those  in  the  fif 
teen  slave  states  and  territories  by  more  than  17,000. 
In  the  slave  states,  almost  one  tenth  part  of  the  free 
white  population  over  twenty  years  of  age  are  unable 
to  read  and  write.  In  the  free  states,  less  than  one  in 
one  hundred  and  fifty ;  and  at  least  four  fifths  of  these 


46 

are  foreigners,  who  ought  not  to  be  included  in  the 
computation.  Many  of  the  slave  states,  too,  have 
munificent  school  funds.  Kentucky  has  one  of  more 
than  a  million  of  dollars  ;  Tennessee,  of  two  millions; 
yet,  in  1837,  Governor  Clarke,  of  Kentucky,  declared, 
in  his  message  to  the  legislature,  that  "  one  third  of 
the  adult  population  were  unable  to  write  their  names  ; " 
and  in  the  State  of  Tennessee,  according  to  the  last 
census,  there  were  58,531  of  the  same  description  of 
persons.  Surely  it  would  take  more  than  five  of  these 
to  make  three  freemen ;  for  the  more  a  state  has  of 
them,  the  less  of  intelligent  freedom  will  there  be  in  it. 
And  if  the  schools  in  the  slave  states  are  compared  with 
the  schools  in  the  free  states,  the  deficiency  in  quality 
will  be  found  as  great  as  the  deficiency  in  number. 

Sir,  during  the  last  ten  years  I  have  had  a  most  ex 
tensive  correspondence  with  the  intelligent  friends  of 
education  in  the  slave  states.  They  yearn  for  progress, 
but  they  cannot  obtain  it.  They  procure  laws  to  be 
passed,  but  there  is  no  one  to  execute  them.  They 
set  forth  the  benefits  and  the  blessings  of  education ; 
but  they  speak  in  a  vacuum,  and  no  one  hears  the  ap 
peal.  If  a  parent  wishes  to  educate  his  children,  he 
must  send  them  from  home,  and  thus  suffer  a  sort  of 
bereavement,  even  while  they  live  ;  or  he  must  employ 
a  tutor  or  governess  in  his  family,  which  few  are  able 
to  do.  The  rich  may  do  it,  but  what  becomes  of  the 
children  of  the  poor  ?  In  cities  the  obstacles  are  less  ; 
but  the  number  of  persons  resident  in  cities  is  rela 
tively  small.  All  this  is  the  inevitable  consequence  of 
slavery ;  and  it  is  as  impossible  for  free,  thorough, 
universal  education  to  coexist  with  slavery  as  for  two 
bodies  to  occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time. 
Slavery  would  abolish  education,  if  it  should  invade  a 
free  state  ;  education  would  abolish  slavery,  if  it  could 
invade  a  slave  state. 

Destroying  common  education,  slavery  destroys  the 


47 

fruits  of  common  education,  —  the  inventive  mind, 
practical  talent,  the  power  of  adapting  means  to  ends 
in  the  business  of  life.  Whence  have  come  all  those 
mechanical  and  scientific  improvements  and  inven 
tions  which  have  enriched  the  world  with  so  many 
comforts,  and  adorned  it  with  so  many  beauties  ;  which 
to-day  give  enjoyments  and  luxuries  to  a  common 
family  in  a  New  England  village,  that  neither  Queen 
Elizabeth  of  England  nor  any  of  her  proud  court  ever 
dreamed  of,  but  a  little  more  than  two  centuries  ago? 
Among  whom  have  these  improvements  originated? 
All  history  and  experience  affirm  that  they  have  come, 
and  must  come,  from  people  among  whom  education  is 
most  generous  and  unconfined.  Increase  the  constit 
uency,  if  I  may  so  speak,  of  developed  intellect,  and 
you  increase  in  an  equal  ratio  the  chances  of  inventive, 
creative  genius.  From  what  part  of  our  own  country 
has  come  the  application  of  steam  to  the  propulsion 
of  boats  for  commercial  purposes,  or  of  wheels  for 
manufacturing  purposes  ?  Where  have  the  various  and 
almost  infinite  improvements  been  made  which  have 
resulted  in  the  present  perfection  of  cotton  and  wool 
len  machinery  ?  Whence  came  the  invention  of  the 
cotton-gin,  and  the  great  improvements  in  railroads  ? 
Where  was  born  the  mighty  genius  who  invented  the 
first  lightning  rod,  which  sends  the  electric  fluid  harm 
less  into  the  earth  ;  or  that  other  genius,  not  less  benef 
icent,  who  invented  the  second  lightning  rod,  which 
sends  the  same  fluid  from  city  to  city  on  messages  of 
business  or  of  affection  ?  Sir,  these  are  results  which 
you  can  no  more  have  without  common  education, 
without  imbuing  the  public  mind  with  the  elements  of 
knowledge,  than  you  can  have  corn  without  planting, 
or  harvests  without  sunshine. 

Look  into  the  Patent  Office  reports,  and  see  in  what 
sections  of  country  mechanical  improvements  and  the 
application  of  science  to  the  useful  arts  have  originated. 


48 

Out  of  jive  hundred  and  seventy-two  patents  issued  in 
1847,  only  sixty-six  went  to  the  slave  states.  The 
patents  annually  issued,  it  is  true,  are  a  mingled  heap 
of  chaff  and  wheat,  but  some  of  it  is  wheat  worthy  of 
Olympus.  I  think  the  Patent  Office  reports  show  that 
at  least  six  or  eight  times  as  many  patents  have  been 
taken  out  for  the  north  as  for  the  south.  What 
improvements  will  a  slave  ever  make  in  agricultural 
implements  ;  in  the  manufacture  of  metals ;  in  pre 
paring  wool,  cotton,  silk,  fur,  or  paper  ;  in  chemical 
processes;  in  the  application  of  stearn  :  in  philosoph 
ical,  nautical,  or  optical  instruments  ;  in  civil  engineer 
ing,  architecture,  the  construction  of  roads,  canals, 
wharves,  bridges,  docks,  piers,  &c.  ;  in  hydraulics  or 
pneumatics ;  in  the  application  of  the  mechanical 
powers  ;  in  household  furniture,  or  wearing  apparel ; 
in  printing,  binding,  engraving,  &c.,  &c.  ?  This  ques 
tion,  when  put  in  reference  to  slaves,  appears  ridicu 
lous  ;  and  yet  it  is  no  more  absurd,  when  asked  in  ref 
erence  to  an  ignorant  slave,  than  when  asked  in 
reference  to  an  uneducated  white  man.  The  fact  that 
the  latter  is  a  voter  makes  no  difference,  notwithstand 
ing  the  common  opinion,  in  certain  latitudes,  that  it 
does.  All  such  improvements  come  from  minds  which 
have  had  an  early  awakening,  and  been  put  on  scien 
tific  trains  of  thought  in  their  childhood  and  youth, — 
a  thing  utterly  impossible  for  the  people  at  large,  with 
out  Common  Schools. 

These  are  causes ;  now  look  at  effects.  In  the 
New  England  states,  the  iron  manufacture  is  twenty 
times  as  much,  according  to  the  population,  as  it  is  in 
Virginia  ;  and  yet  Virginia  has  far  more  of  the  ore  than 
they.  In  cotton,  we  can  hardly  find  a  fraction  low 
enough  to  express  the  difference.  The  ship-building 
in  Maine  and  Massachusetts  is  thirty-five  times  as  much 
as  in  Virginia.  The  north  comes  to  the  south,  cuts 
their  timber,  carries  it  home,  manufactures  it,  and  then 


49 

brings  it  back,  wrought  into  a  hundred  different  forms, 
to  be  sold  to  those  who  would  see  it  rot  before  their 
eyes. 

Can  any  mnn  give  a  reason  why  Norfolk  should  not 
have  grown  like  New  York,  other  than  the  difference 
in  the  institutions  of  the  people  ?  Jamestown  was 
settled  before  Plymouth,  and  had  natural  advantages 
superior  to  it.  Plymouth  now  has  a  population  of  be 
tween  seven  and  eight  thousand,  is  worth  two  millions 
of  dollars,  and  taxed  itself  last  year,  for  schools  and 
schoolhouses,  more  than  seven  thousand  dollars.  I 
ouulit  rather  to  say,  that  it  invested  more  than  seven 
thousand  dollars  in  a  kind  of  stock  that  yields  a  hun 
dred  per  cent,  income.  How  many  bats  there  may  be 
in  the  ruins  of  Jamestown,  the  last  census  does  not  in 
form  us. 

The  books  printed  at  the  south  I  suppose  not  to 
be  equal  to  one  fiftieth  part  of  the  number  printed 
at  the  north.  In  maps,  charts,  engravings,  and  so  forth, 
the  elements  of  comparison  exist  only  on  one  side. 

Out  of  universal  education  come  genius,  skill,  and 
enterprise,  and  the  desire  of  bettering  one's  condition. 
Industry  and  frugality  are  their  concomitants.  Diver 
sified  labor  secures  a  home  market.  Diligence  earns 
much,  but  the  absence  of  the  vices  of  indolence  saves 
more.  Hence  comforts  abound,  while  capital  accumu 
lates.  After  the  home  consumption  is  supplied,  there 
is  a  surplus  for  export.  The  balance  of  trade  is  favor 
able.  All  the  higher  institutions  of  learning  and  reli 
gion  can  be  liberally  supported.  These  institutions 
impart  an  elevated  and  moral  tone  to  society.  Hence 
efforts  for  all  kinds  of  social  ameliorations.  Temper 
ance  societies  spring  up.  Societies  for  preventing 
crime ;  for  saving  from  pauperism  ;  for  the  reform  of 
prisons  and  the  reformation  of  prisoners  ;  for  peace  ; 
for  sending  missionaries  to  the  heathen  ;  for  diffusing 
the  gospel,  —  all  these,  where  a  sound  education  is 
5 


50 

given,  grow  up,  in  the  order  of  Providence,  as  an  oak 
grows  out  of  an  acorn. 

In  one  thing  the  south  has  excelled, — in  training 
statesmen.  The  primary  and  the  ultimate  effects  of 
slavery  upon  this  fact  are  so  well  set  forth  in  a  late 
sermon  by  Dr.  Bushriell,  of  Hartford,  Connecticut,  that 
I  will  read  a  passage  from  it :  — 

"  And  here,  since  this  institution  of  slavery,  entering  into 
the  fortunes  of  our  history,  complicates  in  so  many  ways  the 
disorders  we  suffer,  I  must  pause  a  few  moments  to  sketch  its 
characteristics.  Slavery,  it  is  not  to  be  denied,  is  an  essen 
tially  barbarous  institution.  It  gives  us,  too,  that  sign  which  is  the 
perpetual  distinction  of  barbarism,  that  it  has  no  law  of  prog 
ress.  The  highest  level  it  reaches  is  the  level  at  which  it 
begins.  Indeed,  we  need  not  scruple  to  allow  that  it  has 
yielded  us  one  considerable  advantage,  in  virtue  of  the  fact 
that  it  produces  its  best  condition  first.  For  while  the  north 
ern  people  were  generally  delving  in  labor,  for  many  genera 
tions,  to  create  a  condition  of  comfort,  slavery  set  the  masters 
at  once  on  a  footing  of  ease,  gave  them  leisure  for  elegant  in 
tercourse,  for  unprofessional  studies,  and  seasoned  their  char 
acter  thus  with  that  kind  of  cultivation  which  distinguishes 
men  of  society.  A  class  of  statesmen  were  thus  raised  up, 
who  were  prepared  to  figure  as  leaders  in  scenes  of  public 
life,  where  so  much  depends  on  manners  and  social  address. 
But  now  the  scale  is  changing.  Free  labor  is  rising,  at  length, 
into  a  state  of  wealth  and  comfort,  to  take  the  lead  of  Amer 
ican  society.  Meanwhile,  the  foster-sons  of  slavery,  —  the 
high  families,  the  statesmen,  —  gradually  receding  in  charac 
ter,  as  they  must  under  this  vicious  institution,  are  receding 
also  in  power  and  influence,  and  have  been  ever  since  the 
revolution.  Slavery  is  a  condition  against  nature  ;  the  curse 
of  nature,  therefore,  is  on  it,  and  it  bows  to  its  doom  by  a  law 
as  irresistible  as  gravity.  It  produces  a  condition  of  ease 
which  is  not  the  reward  of  labor,  and  a  state  of  degradation 
which  is  not  the  curse  of  idleness.  Therefore,  the  ease  it 
enjoys  cannot  but  end  in  a  curse,  and  the  degradation  it  suf 
fers  cannot  rise  into  a  blessing.  It  nourishes  imperious  and 
violent  passions.  It  makes  the  masters  solitary  sheiks  on  their 
estates,  forbidding  thus  the  possibility  of  public  schools,  and 


51 

preventing  also  that  condensed  form  of  society  which  is  ne 
cessary  to  the  vigorous  maintenance  of  churches.  Education 
and  religion  thus  displaced,  the  dinner  table  only  remains,  and 
on  this  hangs,  in  great  part,  the  keeping  of  the  social  state.  But 
however  highly  we  may  estimate  the  humanizing  power  of 
hospitality,  it  cannot  be  regarded  as  any  sufficient  spring  of 
character.  It  is  neither  a  school  nor  a  gospel.  And  when  it 
comes  of  self-indulgence,  or  only  seeks  relief  for  the  tedium 
of  an  idle  life,  scarcely  docs  it  bring  with  it  the  blessings  of  a 
virtue.  The  accomplishments  it  yields  are  of  a  mock  quality, 
rather  than  of  a  real,  having  about  the  same  relation  to  a  sub 
stantial  and  finished  culture  that  honor  has  to  character.  This 
kind  of  currency  will  pass  no  longer;  for,  it  is  not  expense 
without  comfort,  or  splendor  set  in  disorder,  as  diamonds  in 
pewter;  it  is  not  air  in  place  of  elegance,  or  assurance  sub 
stituted  for  ease  ;  neither  is  it  to  be  master  of  a  fluent  speech, 
or  to  garnish  the  same  with  stale  quotations  from  the  classics  ; 
much  less  is  it  to  live  in  the  Don  Juan  vein,  accepting  bar 
barism  by  poetic  inspiration,  —  the  same  by  which  a  late  noble 
poet,  drawing  out  of  Turks  and  pirates,  became  the  chosen 
laureate  of  slavery,  —  not  any  or  all  of  these  can  make  up 
such  a  style  of  man,  or  of  life,  as  we  in  this  age  demand. 
We  have  come  up  now  to  a  point  where  we  look  for  true  in 
tellectual  refinement,  and  a  ripe  state  of  personal  culture. 
But  how  clearly  is  it  seen  to  be  a  violation  of  its  own  laws,  for 
slavery  to  produce  a  genuine  scholar,  or  a  man  who,  in  any 
department  of  excellence,  unless  it  be  in  politics,  is  not  a  full 
century  behind  his  time  ?  And  if  we  ask  for  what  is  dearer 
and  better  still,  for  a  pure  Christian  morality,  the  youth  of 
slavery  are  trained  in  no  such  habits  as  are  most  congenial  to 
virtue.  The  point  of  honor  is  the  only  principle  many  of 
them  know.  Violence  and  dissipation  bring  down  every  suc 
ceeding  generation  to  a  state  continually  lower  ;  so  that  now, 
after  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  are  passed,  the  slaveholding 
territory  may  be  described  as  a  vast  missionary  ground,  and 
one  so  uncomfortable  to  the  faithful  ministry  of  Christ,  by 
reason  of  its  jealous  tempers,  and  the  known  repugnance  it 
has  to  many  of  the  first  maxims  of  the  gospel,  that  scarcely 
a  missionary  can  be  found  to  enter  it.  Connected  with  this 
moral  decay,  the  resources  of  nature  also  are  exhausted,  and 
her  fertile  territories  changed  to  a  desert,  by  the  uncreating 


52 

power  of  a  spendthrift  institution.  And  then,  having  made  a 
waste  where  God  had  made  a  garden,  slavery  gathers  up  the 
relics  of  bankruptcy,  and  the  baser  relics  still  of  virtue  and 
all  manly  enterprise,  and  goes  forth  to  renew,  on  a  virgin 
soil,  its  dismal  and  forlorn  history.  Thus,  at  length,  has  been 
produced  what  may  be  called  the  bowie-knife  style  of  civili 
zation,  and  the  new  west  of  the  south  is  overrun  by  it,  —  a 
spirit  of  blood  which  defies  all  laws  of  God  and  man  ;  —  hon 
orable,  but  not  honest ;  prompt  to  resent  an  injury,  slack  to 
discharge  a  debt ;  educated  to  ease,  and  readier,  of  course, 
when  the  means  of  living  fail,  to  find  them  at  the  gambling 
table  or  the  race-ground,  than  in  any  work  of  industry,  — 
probably  squandering  the  means  of  living  there,  to  relieve 
the  tedium  of  ease  itself." 

The  free  schools  of  the  north  lead  to  the  common 
diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  the  equalization  of  society. 
The  private  schools  of  the  south  divide  men  into  pa 
tricians  and  plebeians  ;  so  that,  in  the  latter,  a  nuisance 
grows  out  of  education  itself.  In  the  public  schools 
of  New  York  there  are  libraries  now  amounting  to 
more  than  a  million  of  volumes.  In  the  schools  of 
Massachusetts  the  number  of  volumes  is  relatively 
less,  but  the  quality  is  greatly  superior.  In  each  of 
these  states,  within  half  an  hour's  walk  of  the  poorest 
farm-house  or  mechanic's  shop,  there  is  a  library,  free 
and  open  to  every  child,  containing  works  of  history, 
biography,  travels,  ethics,  natural  science,  &c.,  &c., 
which  will  supply  him  with  the  noblest  capital  of  in 
telligence,  wherewith  to  commence  the  business  of 
making  himself  a  useful  and  intelligent  citizen.  With 
the  exception  of  New  Orleans,  (whose  free  schools 
were  commenced  and  have  been  presided  over  by  a 
Massachusetts  man,]  and  three  or  four  other  cities,  all 
the  libraries  in  the  public  schools  of  the  slave  states 
could  be  carried  in  a  schoolboy's  satchel.  The  libra 
ries  of  all  the  universities  and  colleges  of  the  south 
contain  223,416  volumes  ;  those  of  the  north,  593,897 
volumes.  The  libraries  of  southern  theological  schools, 
22,800  ;  those  of  northern,  102,080. 


53 

Look  into  Silliman's  Journal,  or  the  volumes  of  the 
American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  and  inquire 
whence  the  communications  came.  Where  live  the 
historians  of  the  country,  Sparks,  Prescott,  Bancroft ; 
the  poets,  Whittier,  Bryant,  Longfellow,  Lowell  ;  the 
jurists,  Story,  Kent,  Wheaton  ;  the  classic  models  of 
writing,  Channing,  Everett,  Irving  ;  the  female  writers, 
Miss  Sedgwick,  Mrs.  Sigourney,  and  Mrs.  Child  ? 
All  this  proceeds  from  no  superiority  of  natural  endow 
ment  on  the  one  side,  or  inferiority  on  the  other.  The 
Southern  States  are  all  within  what  may  be  called 
"  the  latitudes  of  genius ;  "  for  there  is  a  small  belt 
around  the  globe,  comprising  but  a  few  degrees  of  lat 
itude,  which  has  produced  all  the  distinguished  men 
who  have  ever  lived.  I  say  this  difference  results 
from  no  difference  in  natural  endowment.  The  men 
tal  endowments  at  the  south  are  equal  to  those  in  any 
part  of  the  world.  But  it  comes  because,  in  one  quar 
ter,  the  common  atmosphere  is  vivified  with  knowl 
edge,  electric  with  ideas,  while  slavery  gathers  its 
Boeotian  fogs  over  the  other.  What  West  Point  has 
been  to  our  armies  in  Mexico,  that,  and  more  than  that, 
good  schools  would  be  to  the  intelligence  and  indus 
trial  prosperity  of  our  country. 

It  may  seem  a  little  out  of  place,  but  I  cannot  for 
bear  here  adverting  to  one  point,  which,  as  a  lover  of 
children  and  as  a  parent,  touches  me  more  deeply  than 
any  other.  To  whom  are  intrusted,  at  the  south,  the 
early  care  and  nurture  of  children  ?  It  has  been 
thought  by  many  educators  and  metaphysicians,  that 
children  learn  as  much  before  the  age  of  seven  years 
as  ever  afterwards.  Who,  at  the  south,  administers 
this  early  knowledge,  —  these  ideas,  these  views,  that 
have  such  sovereign  efficacy  in  the  formation  of  adult 
character?  Who  has  the  custody  of  children  during 
this  ductile,  forming,  receptive  period  of  life,  —  a  pe 
riod  when  the  mind  absorbs  whatever  is  brought  into 
5* 


54 

contact  with  it  ?  Sir,  the  children  of  the  south,  more 
or  less,  and  generally  more,  are  tended  and  nurtured 
by  slaves.  Ignorance,  superstition,  vulgarity,  passion, 
and  perhaps  impurity,  are  the  breasts  at  which  they 
nurse.  Whatever  afflictions  God  may  soe  fit  to  bring 
upon  me,  whatever  other  mercies  He  may  withhold, 
may  He  give  me  none  but  persons  of  intelligence,  of 
refinement,  and  of  moral  excellence,  to  walk  with  my 
children  during  the  imitative  years  of  their  existence, 
and  to  lead  them  in  the  paths  of  knowledge,  and 
breathe  into  their  hearts  the  breath  of  a  moral  and  re 
ligious  life. 

Before  considering  the  moral  character  of  slavery,  I 
wish  to  advert  fora  moment  to  the  position  which  we 
occupy  as  one  of  the  nations  of  the  earth,  in  this  ad 
vancing  period  of  the  world's  civilization.  Nations,  like 
individuals,  have  a  character.  The  date  of  the  latter  is 
counted  by  years  ;  that  of  the  former,  by  centuries. 
No  man  can  have  any  self-respect,  who  is  not  solicitous 
about  his  posthumous  reputation.  No  man  can  be  a 
patriot  who  feels  neither  joy  nor  shame  at  the  idea  of 
the  honor  or  the  infamy  which  his  age  and  his  country 
shall  leave  behind  them.  Nations,  like  individuals, 
have  characteristic  objects  of  ambition.  Greece  cov 
eted  the  arts  ;  Rome  gloried  in  war  ;  but  liberty  has 
been  the  goddess  of  our  idolatry.  Amid  the  storms 
of  freedom  were  we  cradled  ;  in  the  struggles  of  free 
dom  have  our  joints  been  knit  ;  on  the  rich  aliment 
of  freedom  have  we  grown  to  our  present  stature. 
With  a  somewhat  too  boastful  spirit,  perhaps,  have  we 
challenged  the  admiration  of  the  world  for  our  devo 
tion  to  liberty  ;  but  an  enthusiasm  for  the  rights  of 
man  is  so  holy  a  passion,  that  even  its  excesses  are  not 
devoid  of  the  beautiful.  We  have  not  only  won  free 
dom  for  ourselves,  but  we  have  taught  its  sacred  les 
sons  to  others.  The  shout  of  "  Death  to  tyrants,  and 
freedom  for  man  !  "  which  pealed  through  this  country 


55 

seventy  years  ago,  has  at  length  reached  across  the 
Atlantic  :  and  whoever  has  given  an  attentive  ear  to 
the  sounds  which  have  come  back  to  us,  within  the 
last  few  months,  from  the  European  world,  cannot  have 
failed  to  perceive  that  they  were  only  the  far-travelled 
echoes  of  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence. 
But  in  the  divine  face  of  our  liberty  there  has  been 
one  foul,  demoniac  feature.  Whenever  her  votaries 
would  approach  her  to  worship,  they  have  been  fain  to 
draw  a  veil  over  one  part  of  her  visage,  to  conceal  its 
hideousness.  Whence  came  this  deformity  on  her 
otherwise  fair  and  celestial  countenance  ?  Sad  is  the 
story,  but  it  must  be  told.  Her  mother  was  a  vam 
pire.  As  the  daughter  lay  helpless  in  her  arms,  the 
beldam  tore  open  her  living  flesh,  and  feasted  upon 
her  lifeblood.  Hence  this  unsightly  wound,  that 
affrights  whoever  beholds  it.  But,  sir,  I  must  leave 
dallying  with  these  ambiguous  metaphors.  One  wants 
the  plain,  sinewy,  Saxon  tongue  to  tell  of  deeds  that 
should  have  shamed  devils.  Great  Britain  was  the 
mother.  Her  American  colonies  were  the  daughter. 
The  mother  lusted  for  gold.  To  get  it,  she  made  part 
nership  with  robbery  and  death.  Shackles,  chains, 
and  weapons  for  human  butchery,  were  her  outfit 
in  trade.  She  made  Africa  her  hunting-ground.  She 
made  its  people  her  prey,  and  the  unwilling  colonies 
her  market-place.  She  broke  into  the  Ethiop's  home, 
as  a  wolf  into  a  sheepfold  at  midnight.  She  set  the 
continent  a-flame,  that  she  might  seize  the  affrighted 
inhabitants  as  they  ran  shrieking  from  their  blazing 
hamlets.  The  aged  and  the  infant  she  left  for  the 
vultures ;  but  the  strong  men  and  the  strong  women 
she  drove,  scourged  and  bleeding,  to  the  shore.  Packed 
and  stowed  like  merchandise  between  unventilated 
decks,  so  close  that  the  tempest  without  could  not 
ruffle  the  pestilential  air  within,  the  voyage  was  begun. 
Once  a  day  the  hatches  were  opened,  to  receive  food 


56 

and  to  disgorge  the  dead.  Thousands  and  thousands 
of  corpses,  which  she  plunged  into  the  ocean  from  the 
decks  of  her  slave  ships,  she  counted  only  as  the  tare 
of  commerce.  The  blue  monsters  of  the  deep  became 
familiar  with  her  pathway,  and,  not  more  remorseless 
than  she,  they  shared  her  plunder.  At  length  the  ac 
cursed  vessel  reached  the  foreign  shore.  And  there, 
monsters  of  the  land,  fiercer  and  feller  than  any  that 
roam  the  watery  plains,  rewarded  the  robber  by  pur 
chasing  his  spoils. 

For  more  than  a  century  did  the  madness  of  this 
traffic  rage.  During  all  those  years,  the  clock  of  eter 
nity  never  counted  out  a  minute  that  did  not  witness 
the  cruel  death,  by  treachery  or  violence,  of  some  son 
or  daughter,  some  father  or  mother,  of  Africa.  The 
three  millions  of  slaves  that  now  darken  our  southern 
horizon  are  the  progeny  of  these  progenitors,  —  a 
doomed  race,  fated  and  suffering  from  sire  to  son.  But 
the  enormities  of  the  mother  country  did  not  pass 
without  remonstrance.  Many  of  the  colonies  expos 
tulated  against,  and  rebuked  them.  The  New  Eng 
land  colonies,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  pre 
sented  to  the  throne  the  most  humble  and  suppliant 
petitions,  praying  for  the  abolition  of  the  trade.  The 
colonial  legislatures  passed  laws  against  it.  But  their 
petitions  were  spurned  from  the  throne.  Their  laws 
were  vetoed  by  the  governors.  In  informal  negotia 
tions  attempted  with  the  ministers  of  the  crown,  the 
friends  of  the  slave  were  made  to  understand  that  roy 
alty  turned  an  adder's  ear  to  their  prayers.  The  pro- 
foundest  feelings  of  lamentation  and  abhorrence  were 
kindled  in  the  bosoms  of  his  western  subjects  by  this 
flagitious  conduct  of  the  king.  In  that  dark  catalogue 
of  crimes,  which  led  our  fathers  to  forswear  allegiance 
to  the  British  throne,  its  refusal  to  prohibit  the  slave 
trade  to  the  colonies  is  made  one  of  the  most  promi 
nent  of  those  political  offences  which  are  said  to  "  de- 


fine  a  tyrant/'  In  the  original  draught  of  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence,  as  prepared  by  Mr.  Jefferson, 
tli is  crime  of  King  George  the  Third  is  set  forth  in  the 
following  words  :  — 

"  He  has  waged  cruel  war  against  human  nature  itself,  vio 
lating  its  most  sacred  rights  of  life  and  liberty  in  the  persons 
of  a  distant  people  who  never  offended  him,  captivating  and 
carrying  them  into  slavery  in  another  hemisphere,  or  to  incur 
a  miserable  death  in  their  transportation  thither.  This  pirati 
cal  warfare,  the  opprobrium  of  infidel  powers,  is  the  warfare 
of  the  CHRISTIAN  King  of  Great  Britain.  Determined  to 
keep  a  market  where  MEN  should  be  bought  and  sold,  he 
has  prostituted  his  negative  for  suppressing  every  legislative 
attempt  to  prohibit  or  to  restrain  this  execrable  commerce." 

Now.  if  the  King  of  Great  Britain  prostituted  his 
negative  that  slavery  might  not  be  restricted,  what,  in 
after  times,  shall  be  said  of  those  who  prostitute  their 
affirmative  that  it  may  be  extended  ?  Yet  it  is  now- 
proposed,  in  some  of  the  state  legislatures,  and  in  this 
Capitol,  to  do  precisely  the  same  thing,  in  regard  to  the 
Territory  of  Oregon,  which  was  done  by  Great  Brit 
ain  to  her  transatlantic  possessions  :  not  merely  to  legal 
ize  slavery  there,  but  to  prohibit  its  inhabitants  from 
prohibiting  it.  Though  three  thousand  miles  west  of 
Great  Britain,  she  had  certain  constitutional  rights  o vei 
ns,  and  could  affect  our  destiny.  Though  the  inhab 
itants  of  Oregon  are  three  thousand  miles  west  of  us, 
yet  we  have  certain  constitutional  rights  over  them, 
and  can  affect  their  destiny.  Great  Britain  annulled 
our  laws  for  prohibiting  slavery  ;  we  propose  to  an 
nul  an  existing  law  of  Oregon  prohibiting  slavery. 
If  the  execrations  of  mankind  are  yet  too  feeble  and 
too  few  to  punish  Great  Britain  for  her  wickedness, 
what  scope,  what  fulness,  what  eternity  of  execration 
and  anathema  will  be  a  sufficient  retribution  upon  us, 
if  we  volunteer  to  copy  her  example?  It  was  in  the 
eighteenth  century  when  the  mother  country  thus 


58 

made  merchandise  of  human  beings,  —  a  time  when 
liberty  was  a  forbidden  word  in  the  languages  of  Eu 
rope.  It  is  in  the  nineteenth  century  that  we  propose 
to  reenact,  and  on  an  ampler  scale,  the  same  execrable 
villany. — a  time  when  liberty  is  the  rallying  cry  of 
all  Christendom.  So  great  has  been  the  progress  of 
liberal  ideas  within  the  last  century,  that  what  was 
venial  at  its  beginning  is  unpardonable  at  its  close. 
To  drive  coffles  of  slaves  from  here  to  Oregon,  in  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  is  more  infamous 
than  it  was  to  bring  cargoes  of  slaves  from  Africa  here, 
in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth.  Yet  such  is  the  pe 
riod  that  men  would  select  to  perpetuate  and  increase 
the  horrors  of  this  traffic. 

Sir,  how  often,  on  this  floor,  have  indignant  remon 
strances  been  addressed  to  the  north,  for  agitating  the 
subject  of  slavery  ?  How  often  have  we  at  the  north 
been  told  that  we  were  inciting  insurrection,  foment 
ing  a  servile  war,  putting  the  black  man's  knife  to  the 
white  man's  throat.  The  air  of  this  hall  has  been 
filled,  its  walls  have  been,  as  it  were,  sculptured,  by 
southern  eloquence,  with  images  of  devastated  towns, 
of  murdered  men  and  ravished  women  ;  and,  as  a  de 
fence  against  the  iniquities  of  the  institution,  they 
have  universally  put  in  the  plea  that  the  calamity  was 
entailed  upon  them  by  the  mother  country,  that  it 
made  a  part  of  the  world  they  were  born  into,  and 
therefore  they  could  not  help  it.  I  have  always  been 
disposed  to  allow  its  full  weight  to  this  palliation. 
But  if  they  now  insist  upon  perpetrating  against  the 
whole  western  world,  which  happens  at  present  to  be 
under  our  control,  the  same  wrongs  which,  in  darker 
days,  Great  Britain  perpetrated  against  them,  they  will 
forfeit  every  claim  to  sympathy.  Sir,  here  is  a  test. 
Let  not  southern  men,  who  would  now  force  slavery 
upon  new  regions,  ever  deny  that  their  slavery  at  home 
is  a  chosen,  voluntary,  beloved  crime. 


09 

But  let  us  look,  sir,  at  the  moral  character  of  slavery. 
It  is  proposed  not  merely  to  continue  this  institution 
where  it  now  exists,  but  to  extend  it  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean,  —  to  spread  it  over  the  vast  slopes  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  Sir,  the  conduct  of  governments,  like  the 
conduct  of  individuals,  is  subject  to  the  laws  and  the 
retributions  of  Providence.  If,  therefore,  there  is  any 
ingredient  of  wrong  in  this  institution,  we  ought  not 
to  adopt  it,  or  to  permit  it,  even  though  it  should  pour 
wealth  in  golden  showers  over  the  whole  surface  of 
the  land.  In  speaking  of  the  moral  character  of  sla 
very,  sir,  I  mean  to  utter  no  word  for  the  purpose  of 
wounding  the  feelings  of  any  man.  On  the  other 
hand,  1  mean  not  to  wound  the  cause  of  truth  by  ab 
staining  from  the  utterance  of  any  word  which  I  ought 
to  speak. 

The  institution  of  slavery  is  against  natural  right. 
Jurists,  from  the  time  of  Justinian  ;  orators,  from  the 
time  of  Cicero  ;  poets,  from  the  time  of  Homer,  de 
clare  it  to  be  wrong.  The  writers  on  moral  or  ethical 
science,  —  the  expounders  of  the  law  of  nations  and 
of  God,  —  denounce  slavery  as  an  invasion  of  the 
rights  of  man.  They  find  no  warrant  for  it  in  the 
eternal  principles  of  justice  and  equity  ;  and  in  that, 
great  division  which  they  set  forth  between  right  and 
wrong,  they  arrange  slavery  in  the  catalogue  of  crime. 
All  the  noblest  instincts  of  human  nature  rebel  against 
it.  Whatever  has  been  taught  by  sage,  or  sung  by 
poet,  in  favor  of  freedom,  is  a  virtual  condemnation  of 
slavery.  Whenever  we  applaud  the  great  champions 
of  liberty,  who,  by  the  sacrifice  of  life  in  the  cause  of 
freedom,  have  won  the  homage  of  the  world  arid  an 
immortality  of  fame,  we  record  the  testimony  of  our 
hearts  against  slavery.  Wherever  patriotism  and  phi 
lanthropy  have  glowed  brightest  ;  wherever  piety  and 
a  devout  religious  sentiment  have  burned  most  fer 
vently,  there  has  been  the  most  decided  recognition  of 
the  universal  rights  of  man. 


60 

Sir,  let  us  analyze  this  subject,  and  see  if  slavery  be 
not  the  most  compact,  and  concentrated,  and  con 
densed  system  of  wrong  which  the  depravity  of  man 
has  ever  invented.  Slavery  is  said  to  have  had  its  ori 
gin  in  war.  It  is  claimed  that  the  captor  had  a  right 
to  take  the  life  of  his  captive  ;  and  thnt  if  he  spared 
that  life  he  made  it  his  own,  and  thus  acquired  a  right 
to  control  it.  I  deny  the  right  of  the  captor  to  the 
life  of  his  captive  ;  and  even  if  this  right  were  con 
ceded,  I  deny  his  right  to  the  life  of  the  captive's 
offspring.  But  this  relation  between  captor  and  cap 
tive  precludes  the  idea  of  peace  ;  for  no  peace  can  be 
made  where  there  is  no  free  agency.  Peace  being 
precluded,  it  follows  inevitably  that  the  state  of  war 
continues.  Hence,  the  state  of  slavery  is  a  slate  of 
war  ;  and  though  active  hostilities  may  have  ceased, 
they  are  liable  to  break  out,  and  may  rightfully  break 
out,  at  any  moment.  How  long  must  our  fellow-citi 
zens,  who  were  enslaved  in  Algiers,  have  continued  in 
slavery,  before  they  would  have  lost  the  right  of  es 
cape  or  of  resistance  ? 

The  gentleman  from  Virginia,  [Mr.  BOCOCK,]  in  his 
speech  this  morning,  put  the  right  of  the  slaveholder 
upon  a  somewhat  different  ground.  He  said  a  man 
might  acquire  property  in  a  horse  before  the  existence 
of  civil  society,  by  catching  a  wild  one.  And  sft,  he 
added,  one  man  might  acquire  property  in  another 
man,  by  subduing  him  to  his  will.  The  superior  force 
gave  the  right,  whether  to  the  horse  or  to  the  man. 
Now,  if  this  be  so,  and  if  at  any  time  the  superior 
force  should  change  sides,  then  it  follows  inevitably 
that  the  relation  of  the  parties  might  be  rightfully 
changed  by  a  new  appeal  to  force. 

The  same  gentleman  claims  Bible  authority  for  sla 
very.  He  says,  "  I  see  slavery  there  tolerated,  I  had 
almost  said  inculcated.  I  see  such  language  as  this  : 
1  Both  thy  bondmen  and  thy  bondmaids  shall  be  of  the 


61 

heathen  that  are  round  about  you  ;  of  them  shall  you 
buy  bondmen  and  bondmaids  ;  and  ye  shall  take  them 
as  an  inheritance  for  your  children  after  you,  to  inherit 
them  for  a  possession,'  "  &c.  Does  not  the  gentleman 
know  that,  by  the  same  authority,  the  Israelitish  slaves 
were  commanded  to  despoil  their  Egyptian  masters, 
and  to  escape  from  bondage  ?  Surely  the  latter  is  as 
good  an  authority  as  the  former.  If  the  gentleman's 
argument  is  sound,  he  is  bound  to  advocate  a  repeal 
of  the  act  of  1793.  If  the  gentleman's  argument  is 
sound,  the  free  states,  instead  of  surrendering  fugitive 
slaves  to  their  masters,  are  bound  to  give  those  masters 
a  Red  Sea  reception  and  embrace  ;  and  the  escape  of 
the  children  of  Israel  into  Canaan  is  a  direct  precedent 
for  the  underground  railroad  to  Canada. 

Both  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky,  [Mr.  FRENCH,] 
yesterday,  and  the  gentleman  from  Virginia,  to-day, 
spoke  repeatedly,  and  without  the  slightest  discrimina 
tion,  of  "a  slave  and  a  horse,"  "a  slave  and  a  mule," 
&c.  What  should  we  think,  sir,  of  a  teacher  for  our 
children,  or  even  of  a  tender  of  our  cattle,  who  did  not 
recognize  the  difference  between  men  and  mules,  — 
between  humanity  and  horse-flesh  ?  What  should  we 
think,  if,  on  opening  a  work,  claiming  to  be  a  scien 
tific  treatise  on  zoology,  we  should  find  the  author  to 
be  ignorant  of  the  difference  between  biped  and  quad 
ruped,  or  between  men  and  birds,  or  men  and  fishes  ? 
Yet  such  errors  would  be  trifling  compared  with  those 
which  have  been  made  through  all  this  debate.  They 
would  be  simple  errors  in  natural  history,  perhaps 
harmless;  but  these  are  errors,  —  fatal  errors,  —  in  hu 
manity  and  Christian  ethics.  No,  sir ;  all  the  legisla 
tion  of  the  slave  states  proves  that  they  do  not  treat, 
and  cannot  treat,  a  human  being  as  an  animal.  I  will 
show  that  they  are  ever  trying  to  degrade  him  into  an 
animal,  although  they  can  never  succeed. 

This  conscious  idea  that  the  state  of  slavery  is  a 
6 


62 

state  of  war,  —  a  state  in  which  superior  force  keeps 
inferior  force  down,  —  develops  and  manifests  itself 
perpetually.  It  exhibits  itself  in  the  statute  books  of 
the  slave  states,  prohibiting  the  education  of  slaves, 
making  it  highly  penal  to  teach  them  so  much  as  the 
alphabet ;  dispersing  and  punishing  all  meetings  where 
they  come  together  in  quest  of  knowledge.  Look 
into  the  statute  books  of  the  free  states,  and  you  will 
mid  law  after  law,  encouragement  after  encouragement, 
to  secure  the  diffusion  of  knowledge.  Look  into  the 
statute  books  of  the  slave  states,  and  you  find  law 
after  law,  penalty  after  penalty,  to  secure  the  extinc 
tion  of  knowledge.  Who  has  not  read  with  delight 
those  books  which  have  been  written,  both  in  England 
and  in  this  country,  entitled  "  The  Pursuit  of  Knowl 
edge  under  Difficulties,"  giving  the  biographies  of 
illustrious  men,  who,  by  an  undaunted  and  indomita 
ble  spirit,  had  risen  from  poverty  and  obscurity  to  the 
heights  of  eminence,  and  blessed  the  world  with  their 
achievements  in  literature,  in  science,  and  in  morals  ? 
Yet  here,  in  what  we  call  republican  America,  are  fif 
teen  great  states,  vying  with  each  other  to  see  which 
will  bring  the  blackest  and  most  impervious  pall  of 
ignorance  over  three  millions  of  human  beings ;  nay, 
which  can  do  most  to  stretch  this  pall  across  the  con 
tinent,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific. 

Is  not  knowledge  a  good  ?  Is  it  not  one  of  the  most 
precious  bounties  which  the  all-bountiful  Giver  has 
bestowed  upon  the  human  race?  Sir  John  Herschel, 
possessed  of  ample  wealth,  his  capacious  mind  stored 
with  the  treasures  of  knowledge,  surrounded  by  the 
most  learned  society  in  the  most  cultivated  metropolis 
in  the  world,  says,  "  If  I  were  to  pray  for  a  taste 
which  should  stand  me  in  stead,  under  every  variety  of 
circumstances,  and  be  a  source  of  happiness  and  cheer 
fulness  to  me  through  life,  and  a  shield  against  its  ills, 
however  things  might  go  amiss,  and  the  world  frown 


63 

upon  me,  it  would  be  a  taste  for  reading."  Yet  it  is 
now  proposed  to  colonize  the  broad  regions  of  the 
west  with  millions  of  our  fellow-beings,  who  shall 
never  be  able  to  read  a  book,  or  write  a  word  ;  to 
whom  knowledge  shall  bring  no  delight  in  childhood, 
no  relief  in  the  weary  hours  of  sickness  or  convales 
cence,  no  solace  in  the  decrepitude  of  age  ;  who  shall 
perceive  nothing  of  the  beauties  of  art,  who  shall  know 
nothing  of  the  wonders  of  science,  who  shall  never 
reach  any  lofty,  intellectual  conception  of  the  attri 
butes  of  their  great  Creator; — deaf  to  all  the  hosan- 
nas  of  praise  which  nature  sings  to  her  Maker  ;  blind 
in  this  magnificent  temple  which  God  has  builded. 

Sir,  it  is  one  of  the  noblest  attributes  of  man  that 
he  can  derive  knowledge  from  his  predecessors.  We 
possess  the  accumulated  learning  of  ages.  From 
ten  thousand  confluent  streams,  the  river  of  truth, 
widened  and  deepened,  has  come  down  to  us ;  and  it 
is  among  our  choicest  delights,  that  if  we  can  add  to 
its  volume,  as  it  rolls  on,  it  will  bear  a  richer  freight 
of  blessings  to  our  successors.  But  it  is  here  proposed 
to  annul  this  beneficent  law  of  nature  ;  to  repel  this 
proffered  bounty  of  Heaven.  It  is  proposed  to  create 
a  race  of  men,  to  whom  all  the  lights  of  experience 
shall  be  extinguished;  whose  hundredth  generation 
shall  be  as  ignorant  and  as  barbarous  as  its  first. 

Sir,  I  hold  all  voluntary  ignorance  to  be  a  crime ;  I 
hold  all  enforced  ignorance  to  be  a  greater  crime. 
Knowledge  is  essential  to  all  rational  enjoyment  ;  it  is 
essential  to  the  full  and  adequate  performance  of  every 
duty.  Whoever  intercepts  knowledge,  therefore,  on 
its  passage  to  a  human  soul  ;  whoever  strikes  down 
the  hand  that  is  outstretched  to  grasp  it,  is  guilty  of 
one  of  the  most  heinous  of  offences.  Add  to  your 
virtue  knowledge,  says  the  apostle ;  but  here  the  com 
mand  is,  Be-cloud  and  be-little  by  ignorance  whatever 
virtue  you  may  possess. 


tu 

Sir,  let  me  justify  the  earnestness  of  these  expres 
sions  by  describing  the  transition  of  feeling  through 
which  I  have  lately  passed.  I  come  from  a  commu 
nity  where  knowledge  ranks  next  to  virtue  in  the  clas 
sification  of  blessings.  On  the  tenth  day  of  April  last, 
the  day  before  I  left  home  for  this  place,  I  attended 
the  dedication  of  a  schoolhouse  in  Boston  which  had 
cost  $70,000.  The  mayor  presided,  and  much  of  the 
intelligence  and  worth  of  the  city  was  present  on  the 
occasion.  I  see  by  a  paper  which  I  have  this  day  re 
ceived,  that  another  schoolhouse,  in  the  same  city,  was 
dedicated  on  Monday  of  the  present  week.  It  was 
there  stated  by  the  mayor  that  the  cost  of  the  city 
schoolhouses  which  had  been  completed  within  the 
last  three  months  was  $200.000.  On  Tuesday  of 
this  week,  a  new  high  schoolhouse  in  the  city  of  Cam 
bridge  was  dedicated.  Mr.  Everett,  the  president  of 
Harvard  College,  was  present,  and  addressed  the  as 
sembly  in  a  long,  and,  I  need  not  add,  a  most  beauti 
ful  speech.  That  schoolhouse,  with  two  others  to  be 
dedicated  within  a  week,  will  have  cost  $25,000. 
Last  week,  in  the  neighboring  city  of  CharJestown,  a 
new  high  schoolhouse,  of  a  most  splendid  and  costly 
character,  was  dedicated  by  the  mayor  and  city  gov 
ernment,  by  clergy  arid  laity.  But  it  is  not  mayors 
of  cities  and  presidents  of  colleges  alone  that  engage 
in  the  work  of  consecrating  temples  of  education  to 
the  service  of  the  young.  Since  I  have  been  here, 
the  governor  of  the  commonwealth,  Mr.  Briggs,  went 
to  Newburyport,  a  distance  of  forty  miles,  to  attend 
the  dedication  of  a  schoolhouse  which  cost  $25,000. 
On  a  late  occasion,  when  the  same  excellent  chief 
magistrate  travelled  forty  miles  to  attend  the  dedi 
cation  of  a  schoolhouse  in  the  country,  some  speaker 
congratulated  the  audience  because  the  governor  of 
the  commonwealth  had  come  down  from  the  executive 
chair  to  honor  the  occasion.  "  No,"  said  he,  "I  have 


65 

come  up  to  the  occasion  to  be  honored  by  it."  Within 
the  last  year,  $200,000  have  been  given  by  individu 
als  to  Harvard  College.  Within  a  little  longer  time 
than  this,  the  other  two  colleges  in  the  state  have  re 
ceived,  together,  a  still  larger  endowment  from  indi 
viduals  or  the  state. 

These  measures  are  part  of  a  great  system  which 
we  are  carrying  on  for  the  elevation  of  the  race.  Last 
year,  the  voters  of  Massachusetts,  in  their  respective 
towns,  voluntarily  taxed  themselves  about  a  million 
of  dollars  for  the  support  of  Common  Schools.  W^e 
have  an  old  law  on  the  statute  book,  requiring  towns 
to  tax  themselves  for  the  support  of  public  schools; 
but  the  people  have  long  since  lost  sight  of  this 
law  in  the  munificence  of  their  contributions.  Mas 
sachusetts  is  now  erecting  a  reform  school  for  vagrant 
and  exposed  children,  —  so  many  of  whom  come  to 
us  from  abroad, —  which  will  cost  the  state  more  than 
a  hundred  thousand  dollars.  An  unknown  individual 
has  given  twenty  thousand  dollars  towards  it.  We 
educate  all  our  deaf  and  dumb  and  blind.  An  appro 
priation  was  made  by  the  last  legislature  to  establish  a 
school  for  idiots,  in  imitation  of  those  beautiful  insti 
tutions  in  Paris,  in  Switzerland,  and  in  Berlin,  where 
the  most  revolting  and  malicious  of  this  deplorable 
class  are  tamed  into  docility,  made  lovers  of  order  and 
neatness,  and  capable  of  performing  many  valuable 
services.  The  future  teacher  of  this  school  is  now 
abroad,  preparing  himself  for  his  work.  A  few  years 
ago,  Mr.  Everett,  the  present  president  of  Harvard 
College,  then  governor  of  the  commonwealth,  spoke 
the  deep  cotivictions  of  Massachusetts  people,  when,  in 
a  public  address  on  education,  he  exhorted  the  fathers 
and  mothers  of  Massachusetts  in  the  following  words : 
"  Save,"  said  he,  "  save,  spare,  scrape,  stint,  starve,  do 
any  thing  but  steal,"  to  educate  your  children.  And 
Doctor  Howe,  the  noble-hearted  director  of  the  Insti- 
6* 


66 

tution  for  the  Blind,  lately  uttered  the  deepest  senti 
ments  of  our  citizens,  when,  in  speaking  of  our  duties 
to  the  blind,  the  .deaf  and  dumb,  and  the  idiotic,  he 
said,  "  The  sight  of  any  human  being  left  to  brutish 
ignorance  is  always  demoralizing  to  the  beholders. 
There  floats  not  upon  the  stream  of  life  a  wreck  of 
humanity  so  utterly  shattered  and  crippled,  but  that 
its  signals  of  distress  should  challenge  attention  and 
command  assistance." 

Sir,  it  was  all  glowing  and  fervid  with  sentiments 
like  these,  that,  a  few  weeks  ago,  I  entered  this  House, 
—  sentiments  transfused  into  my  soul  from  without, 
even  if  I  had  no  vital  spark  of  nobleness  to  kindle 
them  within.  Imagine,  then,  my  strong  revulsion  of 
feeling,  when  the  first  set,  elaborate  speech  which  1 
heard,  was  that  of  the  gentleman  from  Virginia,  pro 
posing  to  extend  ignorance  to  the  uttermost  bounds  of 
this  republic,  —  to  legalize  it.  to  enforce  it,  to  necessi 
tate  it,  and  make  it  eternal.  Since  him,  many  others 
have  advocated  the  same  abhorrent  doctrine.  Not  sat 
isfied  with  dooming  a  whole  race  of  our  fellow- beings 
to  mental  darkness,  impervious  and  everlasting,  —  not 
satisfied  with  drawing  this  black  curtain  of  ignorance 
between  man  and  nature,  between  the  human  soul  and 
its  God,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Rio  Grande,  across 
half  the  continent,  —  they  desire  to  increase  this  race 
ten.  twenty  millions  more,  and  to  unfold  and  spread 
out  this  black  curtain  across  the  other  half  of  the  con 
tinent.  When,  sir,  in  the  halls  of  legislation,  men 
advocate  measures  like  this,  it  is  no  figure  of  speech 
to  say  that  their  words  are  the  clankings  of  multitudi 
nous  fetters  ;  each  gesture  of  their  arms  tears  human 
flesh  with  ten  thousand  whips  ;  each  exhalation  of 
their  breath  spreads  clouds  of  moral  darkness  from 
horizon  to  horizon. 

Twenty  years  ago,  a  sharp  sensation  ran  through  the 
nerves  of  the  civilized  world,  at  the  story  of  a  young 


67 

man  named  Caspar  Mauser,  found  in  the  city  of  Nurem 
berg,  in  Bavaria.  Though  sixteen  or  seventeen  years 
of  age,  he  could  not  walk  nor  talk.  He  heard  without 
understanding  ;  he  saw  without  perceiving;  he  moved 
without  definite  purpose.  It  was  the  soul  of  an  infant 
in  (he  body  of  "an  adult.  After  he  had  learned  to 
speak,  he  related  that,  from  his  earliest  recollection, 
he  had  always  been  kept  in  a  hole  so  small,  that  he 
could  not  stretch  out  his  limbs,  where  he  saw  no 
light,  heard  no  sound,  nor  even  witnessed  the  face  of 
the  attendant  who  brought  him  his  scanty  food.  For 
many  years  conjecture  was  rife  concerning  his  history, 
and  all  Germany  was  searched  to  discover  his  origin. 
After  a  long  period  of  fruitless  inquiry  and  specula 
tion,  public  opinion  settled  down  into  the  belief  that 
he  was  the  victim  of  some  great  unnatural  crime  ; 
that  he  was  the  heir  to  some  throne,  and  had  been 
sequestered  by  ambition  ;  or  the  inheritor  of  vast 
wealth,  and  had  been  hidden  away  by  cupidity  ;  or 
the  offspring  of  criminal  indulgence,  and  had  been 
buried  alive  to  avoid  exposure  and  shame.  A  German, 
Von  Feuerbach,  published  an  account  of  Caspar,  en 
titled  "The  Example  of  a  Crime  on  the  Life  of  the 
Soul."  But  why  go  to  Europe  to  be  thrilled  with  the 
pathos  of  a  human  being  shrouded  from  the  light  of 
nature,  and  cut  off  from  a  knowledge  of  duty  and  of 
God?.  To-day,  in  this  boasted  land  of  light  and  lib 
erty,  there  are  three  million  Caspar  Hausers  ;  and,  as 
if  this  were  not  enough,  it  is  proposed  to  multiply 
their  number  tenfold,  and  to  fill  up  all  the  western 
world  with  these  proofs  of  human  avarice  and  guilt. 
it  is  proposed  that  we  ourselves  should  create  and 
should  publish  to  the  world,  not  one,  but  untold  mil 
lions  of  "Examples  of  a  Crime  on  the  Life  of  the 
Soul"  It  is  proposed  that  the  self-styled  freemen,  the 
self-styled  Christians,  of  fifteen  great  states  in  this 
American  Union,  shall  engage  in  the  work  of  procre- 


68 

ating,  rearing,  and  selling  Caspar  Hausers,  often  from 
their  own  loins  ;  and  if  any  further  development  of 
soul  or  of  body  is  allowed  to  the  American  victims 
than  was  permitted  to  the  Bavarian  child,  it  is  only 
because  such  development  will  increase  their  market 
value  at  the  barracoons.  It  is  not  from  any  difference 
of  motive,  but  only  the  better  to  insure  that  motive's 
indulgence.  The  slave  child  must  be  allowed  to  use 
his  limbs,  or  how  could  he  drudge  out  his  life  in  the 
service  of  his  master?  The  slave  infant  must  be 
taught  to  walk,  or  how,  under  the  shadow  of  this 
thrice-glorious  Capitol,  could  he  join  a  coffle  for  New 
Orleans  ? 

I  know,  sir,  that  it  has  been  said,  within  a  short  time 
past,  that  Caspar  Hauser  was  an  impostor,  and  his  story 
a  fiction.  Would  to  God  that  this  could  ever  be  said 
of  his  fellow-victims  in  America ! 

For  another  reason  slavery  is  an  unspeakable  wrong. 
The  slave  is  debarred  from  testifying  against  a  white 
man.  The  courts  will  not  hear  him  as  a  witness.  By 
the  principles  of  the  common  law,  if  any  man  suffers 
violence  at  the  hands  of  another,  he  can  prefer  his 
complaint  to  magistrates,  or  to  the  grand  juries  of  the 
courts,  who  are  bound  to  give  him  redress.  Hence 
the  law  is  said  to  hold  up  its  shield  before  every  man 
for  his  protection.  It  surrounds  him  in  the  crowded 
street  and  in  the  solitary  place.  It  guards  his'  treas 
ures  with  greater  vigilance  than  locks  or  iron  safes  ; 
and  against  meditated  aggressions  upon  himself,  his 
wife,  or  his  children,  it  fastens  his  doors  every  night 
more  securely  than  triple  bolts  of  brass.  But  all  these 
sacred  protections  are  denied  to  the  slave.  While  sub 
jected  to  the  law  of  force,  he  is  shut  out  from  the  law 
of  right.  To  suffer  injury  is  his,  but  never  to  obtain 
redress.  For  personal  cruelties,  for  stripes  that  shiver 
his  flesh,  and  blows  that  break  his  bones,  for  robbery 
or  for  murder,  neither  he  nor  his  friends  can  have  pre- 


69 

ventive,  remedy,  or  recompense.  The  father,  who  is 
a  slave,  may  see  son  or  daughter  scored,  mangled,  mu 
tilated,  or  ravished  before  his  eyes,  and  he  must  be 
dumb  as  a  sheep  before  its  shearers.  The  wife  may 
be  dishonored  in  the  presence  of  the  husband,  and,  if 
he  remonstrates  or  rebels,  the  miscreant  who  could  burn 
with  the  lust  will  burn  not  less  fiercely  with  a  ven 
geance  to  be  glutted  upon  his  foiler. 

Suppose,  suddenly,  by  some  disastrous  change  in 
the  order  of  nature,  an  entire  kingdom  or  community 
were  to  be  enveloped  in  total  darkness,  —  to  have  no 
day,  no  dawn,  but  midnight  evermore  !  Into  what 
infinite  forms  of  violence  and  wrong  would  the  de 
praved  passions  of  the  human  heart  spring  up,  when 
no  longer  restrained  by  the  light  of  day,  and  the  dan 
gers  of  exposure  !  So  far  as  legal  rights  against  his 
oppressors  are  concerned,  the  slave  lives  in  such  a 
world  of  darkness.  A  hundred  of  his  fellows  may 
stand  around  him  and  witness  the  wrongs  he  suffers, 
but  not  one  of  them  can  appeal  to  jury,  magistrate,  or 
judge,  for  punishment  or  redress.  The  wickedest 
white  man,  in  a  company  of  slaves,  bears  a  charmed 
life.  There  is  not  one  of  the  fell  passions  that  rages 
in  his  bosom  which  he  cannot  indulge  with  wanton 
ness  and  to  satiety,  and  the  court  has  no  ears  to  hear 
the  complaint  of  the  victim.  How  dearly  does  every 
honorable  man  prize  character !  The  law  denies  the 
slave  a  character  ;  for,  however  traduced,  legal  vindi 
cation  is  impossible. 

And  yet,  infinitely  flagrant  as  the  anomaly  is,  the 
slave  is  amenable  to  the  laws  of  the  land  for  all  of 
fences  which  he  may  commit  against  others,  though 
he  is  powerless  to  protect  himself  by  the  same  law 
from  offences  which  others  may  commit  against  him. 
He  may  suffer  all  wrong,  and  the  courts  will  not 
hearken  to  his  testimony;  but  for  the  first  wrong  he 
does,  the  same  courts  inflict  their  severest  punishments 


TO 

upon  him.  This  is  the  reciprocity  of  slave  la\\r,  —  to 
be  forever  liable  to  be  proved  guilty,  but  never  able  to 
prove  himself  innocent ;  to  be  subject  to  all  punish 
ments,  but,  through  his  own  oath,  to  no  protection. 
Hear  what  is  said  by  the  highest  judicial  tribunal 
of  South  Carolina :  "  Although  slaves  are  held  to  be 
the  absolute  property  of  their  owners,  yet  they  have 
the  power  of  committing  crimes." — 2d  Nott  and 
McCord's  Rep.,  p.  179.  A  negro  is  so  far  amenable 
to  the  common  law,  that  he  may  be  one  of  three  to 
constitute  the  number  necessary  to  make  a  riot.  —  1st 
Bay's  Rep.,  358.  By  the  laws  of  the  same  state,  a 
negro  may  be  himself  stolen,  and  he  has  no  redress  ; 
but  if  he  steals  a  negro  from  another,  he  shall  be  hung. 
—  2d  Nott  and  McCord's  Rep.,  179.  [An  example 
of  this  penalty  suffered  by  a  slave.]  This  is  the  way 
that  slave  legislatures  and  slave  judicatories  construe 
the  command  of  Christ,  "  Whatsoever  ye  would  that 
men  should  do  unto  you,  do  ye  also  the  same  unto 
them."  Nay,  by  the  laws  of  some  of  the  slave  states, 
where  master  and  slave  are  engaged  in  a  joint  act,  the 
slave  is  indictable,  while  the  master  is  not. 

What  rights  are  more  sacred  or  more  dear  to  us  than 
the  conjugal  and  the  parental  ?  No  savage  nation, 
however  far  removed  from  the  frontiers  of  civilization, 
has  ever  yet  been  discovered,  where  these  rights  were 
unknown  or  un honored.  The  beasts  of  the  forest  feel 
and  respect  them.  It  is  only  in  the  land  of  slaves  that 
they  are  blotted  out  and  annihilated. 

Slavery  is  an  unspeakable  wrong  to  the  conscience. 
The  word  "conscience  "  conveys  a  complex  idea.  It 
includes  conscientiousness  j  that  is,  the  sentiment  or 
instinct  of  right  and  wrong ;  and  also  intelligence, 
which  is  the  guide  of  this  sentiment.  Conscience, 
then,  implies  both  the  desire  or  impulse  to  do  right,  and 
also  a  knowledge  of  what  is  right.  Nature  endows  us 
with  the  sentiment,  but  the  knowledge  we  must  ac- 


71 

quire.  Hence  we  speak  of  an  "  enlightened  con 
science,"  meaning  thereby  not  only  the  moral  sense,  but 
that  knowledge  of  circumstances,  relations,  tendencies 
and  results,  which  is  necessary  in  order  to  guide  the 
moral  sense  to  just  conclusions.  Each  of  these  elements 
is  equally  necessary  to  enable  a  man  to  feel  rightly  and 
to  act  rightly.  Mere  knowledge,  without  the  moral 
sense,  can  take  no  cognizance  of  the  everlasting  dis 
tinctions  between  right  and  wrong  ;  and  so  the  blind 
instinct,  unguided  by  knowledge,  will  be  forever  at 
fault  in  its  conclusions.  The  two  were  made  to  coexist 
and  operate  together  by  Him  who  made  the  human 
soul.  But  the  impious  hand  of  man  divorces  these 
twin  capacities,  wherever  it  denies  knowledge.  If  one 
of  these  coordinate  powers  in  the  mental  realm  be  an 
nulled  by  the  legislature,  it  may  be  called  law  ;  but  it 
is  repugnant  to  every  law  and  attribute  of  God. 

But,  not  satisfied  with  having  invaded  the  human 
soul,  and  annihilated  one  of  its  most  sacred  attributes, 
in  the  persons  of  three  millions  of  our  fellow-men  ;  not 
satisfied  with  having  killed  the  conscience,  as  far  as  it 
can  be  killed  by  human  device,  and  human  force,  in 
an  entire  race  ;  we  are  now  invoked  to  multiply  that 
race,  to  extend  it  over  regions  yet  unscathed  by  its  ex 
istence,  and  there  to  call  into  being  other  millions  of 
men,  upon  whose  souls,  and  upon  the  souls  of  whose 
posterity,  the  same  unholy  spoliation  shall  be  commit 
ted  forever. 

Slavery  is  an  unspeakable  wrong  to  the  religious 
nature  of  man.  The  dearest  and  most  precious  of  all 
human  rights  is  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  mat 
ters  of  religion.  I  am  interested  in  nothing  else  so 
much  as  in  the  attributes  of  my  Creator,  and  in  the 
relations  which  he  has  established  between  me  and 
himself,  for  time  and  for  eternity.  To  investigate 
for  myself  these  relations,  and  their  momentous  conse 
quences  ;  to  "  search  the  Scriptures  ;  "  to  explore  the 


72 

works  of  God  in  the  outward  and  visible  universe ;  to 
ask  counsel  of  the  sages  and  divines  of  the  ages  gone 
by,  —  these  are  rights  which  it  would  be  sacrilege  in 
me  to  surrender  ;  which  it  is  a  worse  sacrilege  in  any 
human  being  or  human  government  to  usurp.  Yet,  by 
denying  education  to  the  slave,  you  destroy  not  merely 
the  right,  but  the  power,  of  personal  examination  in 
regard  to  all  that  most  nearly  concerns  the  soul's  inter 
ests.  Who  so  base  as  not  to  reverence  the  .mighty 
champions  of  religious  freedom,  in  days  when  the 
dungeon,  the  rack,  and  the  fagot  were  the  arguments 
of  a  government  theology  ?  Who  does  not  reverence, 
I  say,  Wickliffe,  Huss,  Luther,  and  the  whole  army  of 
martyrs  whose  blood  reddened  the  axe  of  English  in 
tolerance  ?  Yet  it  was  only  for  this  right  of  private 
judgment,  for  this  independence  of  another  man's 
control  in  religious  concernments,  that  the  godlike 
champions  of  religious  liberty  perilled  themselves  and 
perished.  Yet  it  is  this  very  religious  despotism  over 
millions  of  men  which  it  is  now  proposed,  not  to 
destroy,  but  to  create.  It  is  proposed  not  to  break  old 
fetters  and  cast  them  away,  but  to  forge  new  ones  and 
rivet  them  on.  Sir,  on  the  continent  of  Europe,  and 
in  the  Tower  of  London,  I  have  seen  the  axes,  the 
chains,  and  other  horrid  implements  of  death,  by  which 
the  great  defenders  of  freedom  for  the  soul  were 
brought  to  their  final  doom,  —  by  which  political  and 
religious  liberty  was  cloven  down ;  but  fairer  arid 
lovelier  to  the  view  were  axe  and  chain,  and  all  the 
ghastly  implements  of  death  ever  invented  by  religious 
bigotry  or  civil  despotism  to  wring  and  torture  freedom 
out  of  the  soul  of  man  ;  —  fairer  and  lovelier  were  they 
all  than  the  parchment  roll  of  this  House  on  which 
shall  be  inscribed  a  law  for  profaning  one  additional 
foot  of  American  soil  with  the  curse  of  slavery. 


73 


After  the  above  speech  was  delivered,  I  was  referred 
to  a  Tract,  written  by  a  Virginian,  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  ;  and,  by  the  politeness  of  its  author,  I  have 
since  obtained  a  copy  of  it.  It  is  entitled,  "  Address 
to  the  People  of  West  Virginia  ;  showing  that  Slavery 
is  injurious  to  the  public  welfare,  and  that  it  may  be 
gradually  abolished,  without  detriment  to  the  rights 
and  interests  of  Slaveholders.  BY  A  SLAVEHOLDER  OF 
WEST  VIRGINIA.  Lexington  :  R.  0.  Noel.  1847.''  This 
Address  was  written  by  the  Rev.  Henry  RufTner,  D.  D., 
president  of  Lexington  College,  Lexington,  Va.  Some 
of  the  passages  of  this  Address  are  so  striking  ;  it  is 
throughout  so  corroborative  of  one  of  the  arguments 
contained  in  the  speech  ;  and  coming,  as  it  does,  from 
a  Virginian,  an  eye-witness  of  the  effects  of  slavery, 
and  a  holder  of  slaves,  that  I  have  thought  it  would  be 
useful  to  append  them.  The  extracts,  of  course,  are  not, 
as  here,  consecutive. 

Nowhere,  since  time  began,  have  the  two  systems  of 
slave  labor  and  free  labor  been  subjected  to  so  fair  and  so  de 
cisive  a  trial  of  their  effects  on  public  prosperity  as  in  these 
United  States.  Here  the  two  systems  have  worked  side  by 
side  for  ages,  under  such  equal  circumstances,  both  political 
and  physical,  and  with  such  ample  time  and  opportunity  for 
each  to  work  out  its  proper  effects,  that  all  must  admit  the  ex 
periment  to  be  now  complete,  and  the  result  decisive.  No 
man  of  common  sense,  who  has  observed  this  result,  can 
doubt  for  a  moment  that  the  system  of  free  labor  promotes 
the  growth  and  prosperity  of  states  in  a  much  higher  degree 
than  the  system  of  slave  labor.  In  the  first  settlement  of  a 
country,  when  labor  is  scarce  and  dear,  slavery  may  give  a 
temporary  impulse  to  improvement ;  but  even  this  is  not  the 
case,  except  in  warm  climates,  and  where  free  men  are  scarce 
and  either  sickly  or  lazy ;  and  when  we  have  said  this,  we 
7 


74 

have  said  all  that  experience  in  the  United  States  warrants  us 
to  say,  in  favor  of  the  policy  of  employing  slave  labor. 

It  is  the  common  remark  of  all  who  have  travelled  through 
the  United  States,  that  the  free  states  and  the  slave  states 
exhibit  a  striking  contrast  in  their  appearance.  In  the  older 
free  states  are  seen  all  the  tokens  of  prosperity  ;  —  a  dense 
and  increasing  population  ;  thriving  villages,  towns,  and  cities  ; 
a  neat  and  productive  agriculture,  growing  manufactures,  and 
active  commerce. 

In  the  older  parts  of  the  slave  states,  — with  a  few  local 
exceptions,  —  are  seen,  on  the  contrary,  too  evident  signs  of 
stagnation,  or  of  positive  decay  ;  —  a  sparse  population,  a 
slovenly  cultivation  spread  over  vast  fields  that  are  wearing  out, 
among  others  already  worn  out  and  desolate ;  villages  and  towns, 
14  few  and  far  between,"  rarely  growing,  often  decaying,  some 
times  mere  remnants  of  what  they  were,  sometimes  deserted 
ruins,  haunted  only  by  owls  ;  generally  no  manufactures,  nor 
even  trades,  except  the  indispensable  few ;  commerce  and 
navigation  abandoned,  as  far  as  possible,  to  the  people  of  the 
free  states  ;  and  generally,  instead  of  the  stir  and  bustle  of 
industry,  a  dull  and  dreamy  stillness,  broken,  if  broke  at  all, 
only  by  the  wordy  brawl  of  politics. 

New  England  and  the  middle  states  of  New  York,  New 
Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania  contained,  in  1790,  1,968,000  in 
habitants,  and  in  1840,  6,760,000;  having  gained,  in  this  pe 
riod,  243  per  cent. 

The  four  old  slave  states  had,  in  1790,  a  population  of 
1,473,000,  and  in  1840,  of  3,279,000  ;  having  gained,  in  the 
same  period,  122  per  cent.,  just  about  half  as  much,  in  pro 
portion,  as  the  free  states.  They  ought  to  have  gained  about 
twice  as  much  ;  for  they  had  at  first  only  seven  inhabitants  to 
the  square  mile,  when  the  free  states  not  only  had  upwards  of 
twelve,  but,  on  the  whole,  much  inferior  advantages  of  soil  and 
climate.  Even  cold,  barren  New  England,  though  more  than 
twice  as  thickly  peopled,  grew  in  population  at  a  faster  rate 
than  these  old  slave  states. 

About  half  the  territory  of  these  old  slave  states  is  new 
country,  and  has  comparatively  few  slaves.  On  this  part  the 
increase  of  population  has  chiefly  taken  place.  On  the  old 
slave-labored  lowlands,  a  singular  phenomena  has  appeared  ; 


75 

there,  within  the  bounds  of  these  rapidly  growing  United 
States,  —  yes,  there,  population  has  been  long  at  a  stand  ; 
yes,  over  wide  regions, — especially  in  Virginia,  —  it  has  de 
clined,  and  a  new  wilderness  is  gaining  upon  the  cultivated 
land  !  What  has  done  this  work  of  desolation  ?  Not  war, 
nor  pestilence  ;  not  oppression  of  rulers,  civil  or  ecclesiasti 
cal  ;  but  slavery,  a  curse  more  destructive  in  its  effects  than 
any  of  them.  It  were  hard  to  find,  in  old  king-ridden,  priest- 
ridden,  overtaxed  Europe,  so  large  a  country,  where,  within 
twenty  years  past,  such  a  growing  poverty  and  desolation  have 
appeared. 

It  is  in  the  last  period  of  ten  years,  from  1830  to  1840,  that 
this  consuming  plague  of  slavery  has  shown  its  worst  effects 
in  the  old  Southern  States.  Including  the  increase  in  their 
newly-settled  and  western  counties,  they  gained  in  population 
only  7£  per  cent. ;  while  cold,  barren,  thickly  peopled  New 
England  gained  15,  and  the  old  Middle  States  26  per  cent. 
East  Virginia  actually  fell  off  26,000  in  population  ;  and, 
with  the  exception  of  Richmond  and  one  or  two  other  towns, 
her  population  continues  to  decline.  Old  Virginia  was  the 
first  to  sow  this  land  of  ours  with  slavery  ;  she  is  also  the  first 
to  reap  the  full  harvest  of  destruction.  Her  lowland  neigh 
bors  of  Maryland  and  the  Carolinas  were  not  far  behind  at 
the  seeding ;  nor  are  they  far  behind  at  the  ingathering  of 
desolation. 

Let  us  take  the  rich  and  beautiful  State  of  Kentucky,  com 
pared  with  her  free  neighbor  Ohio.  The  slaves  of  Kentucky 
have  composed  less  than  a  fourth  part  of  her  population.  But 
mark  their  effect  upon  the  comparative  growth  of  the  state. 
In  the  year  1800,  Kentucky  contained  221,000  inhabitants, 
and  Ohio,  45,000.  In  forty  years,  the  population  of  Kentucky 
had  risen  to  780,000  ;  that  of  Ohio  to  1,519,000.  This  won 
derful  difference  could  not  be  owing  to  any  natural  superiority 
of  the  Ohio  country.  Kentucky  is  nearly  as  large,  nearly  as 
fertile,  and  quite  equal,  in  other  gifts  of  nature.  She  had 
greatly  the  advantage,  too,  in  the  outset  of  this  forty  years1 
race  of  population.  She  started  with  5£  inhabitants  to  the 
square  mile,  and  came  out  with  20  :  Ohio  started  with  one  in 
habitant  to  the  square  mile,  and  came  out  with  38.  Kentucky 
had  full  possession  of  her  territory  at  the  beginning.  Much 
of  Ohio  was  then,  and  for  a  long  time  afterwards,  in  posses- 


76 

sion  of  the  Indians.  Ohio  is  by  this  time  considerably  more 
than  twice  as  thickly  peopled  as  Kentucky  ;  yet  she  still  gains, 
both  by  natural  increase  and  by  the  influx  of  emigrants  ; 
while  Kentucky  has  for  twenty  years  been  receiving  much 
fewer  emigrants  than  Ohio,  and  multitudes  of  her  citizens  have 
been  yearly  moving  off  to  newer  and  yet  newer  countries. 

Compare  this  natural  increase  with  the  census  returns,  and 
it  appears  that,  in  the  ten  years  from  1830  to  1840,  Virginia 
lost  by  emigration  no  fewer  than  375,000  of  her  people,  of 
whom  East  Virginia  lost  304,000,  and  West  Virginia  71,000. 
At  this  rate  Virginia  supplies  the  west  every  ten  years  with  a 
population  equal  in  number  to  the  population  of  the  State  of 
Mississippi  in  1840 ! 

Some  Virginia  politicians,  proudly,  —  yes,  proudly,  fellow- 
citizens,  —  call  our  old  commonwealth  The  Mother  of  States  ! 
These  enlightened  patriots  might  pay  her  a  still  higher  com 
pliment,  by  calling  her  The  Grandmother  of  States.  For  our 
part,  we  are  grieved  and  mortified  to  think  of  the  lean  and 
haggard  condition  of  our  venerable  mother.  Her  black  chil 
dren  have  sucked  her  so  dry,  that  now,  for  a  long  time  past, 
she  has  not  milk  enough  for  her  offspring,  either  black  or 
white. 

She  has  sent,  —  or  we  should  rather  say,  she  has  driven,  — 
from  her  soil  at  least  one  third  of  all  the  emigrants  who  have 
gone  from  the  old  states  to  the  new.  More  than  another  third 
have  gone  from  the  other  old  slave  states.  Many  of  these 
multitudes,  who  have  left  the  slave  states,  have  shunned  the 
regions  of  slavery,  and  settled  in  the  free  countries  of  the 
west.  These  were  generally  industrious  and  enterprising 
white  men,  who  found,  by  sad  experience,  that  a  country  of 
slaves  was  not  the  country  for  them.  It  is  a  truth,  a  certain 
truth,  that  slavery  drives  free  laborers,  — farmers,  mechanics, 
and  all,  and  some  of  the  best  of  them  too,  —  out  of  the  coun 
try,  and  Jills  their  places  with  negroes. 

It  is  admitted  on  all  hands,  that  slave  labor  is  better  adapted 
to  agriculture  than  to  any  other  branch  of  industry  ;  and  that, 
if  not  good  for  agriculture,  it  is  really  good  for  nothing. 

Therefore,  since  in  agriculture  slave  labor  is  proved  to  be 
far  less  productive  than  free  labor,  slavery  is  demonstrated 
to  be  not  only  unprofitable,  but  deeply  injurious  to  the  public 
prosperity. 


77 

We  do  not  mean  that  slave  labor  can  never  earn  any  thing 
for  him  that  employs  it.  The  question  is  between  free  labor 
;unl  slave  labor.  He  that  chooses  to  employ  a  sort  of  labor 
that  yields  only  half  as  much  to  the  hand  as  another  sort 
would  yield,  makes  a  choice  that  is  not  only  unprofitable,  but 
deeply  injurious  to  his  interest. 

Agriculture  in  the  slave  states  may  be  characterized  in 
general  by  two  epithets,  extensive,  exhaustive,  —  which  in  all 
agricultural  countries  forebode  two  things,  impoverishment, 
depopulation.  The  general  system  of  slaveholding  farmers 
and  planters,  in  all  times  and  places,  has  been,  and  now  is, 
and  ever  will  be,  to  cultivate  much  land,  badly,  for  present 
gain,  —  in  short,  to  kill  the  goose  that  lays  the  golden  egg. 
They  cannot  do  otherwise  with  laborers  who  work  by  compul 
sion,  for  the  benefit  only  of  their  masters,  and  whose  sole  in 
terest  in  the  matter  is  to  do  as  little  and  to  consume  as  much 
as  possible. 

This  ruinous  system  of  large  farms  cultivated  by  slaves 
showed  its  effects  in  Italy,  eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  when 
the  Roman  empire  was  at  the  height  of  its  grandeur. 

Pliny,  a  writer  of  that  age,  in  his  Natural  History,  (Book 
18,  c.  1-7,)  tells  us,  that  while  the  small  farms  of  former 
times  were  cultivated  by  freemen,  and  even  great  command 
ers  did  not  disdain  to  labor  with  their  own  hands,  agriculture 
flourished,  and  provisions  were  abundant ;  but  that  afterwards, 
when  the  lands  were  engrossed  by  a  few  great  proprietors, 
and  cultivated  by  fettered  and  branded  slaves,  the  country 
was  ruined,  and  corn  had  to  be  imported.  The  same  system 
was  spreading  ruin  over  the  provinces,  and  thus  the  prosperity 
of  the  empire  was  undermined.  Pliny  denounces,  as  the 
worst  of  all,  the  system  of  having  large  estates  in  the  country 
cultivated  by  slaves,  or  indeed,  says  he,  "  to  have  any  thing 
done  by  men  who  labor  without  hope  of  reward" 

So  Livy,  the  great  Roman  historian,  observed,  some  years 
before  Pliny,  (Book  6,  c.  12,)  that  u  innumerable  multitudes 
of  men  formerly  inhabited  those  parts  of  Italy,  where,  in  his 
time,  none  but  slaves  redeemed  the  country  from  desertion  ;" 
—  that  is,  a  dense  population  of  free  laborers  had  been  suc 
ceeded  by  a  sparse  population  of  slaves. 

Even  the  common  mechanical  trades  do  not  flourish  in  a 
slave  state.  Some  mechanical  operations  must,  indeed,  be 
7* 


performed  in  every  civilized  country ;  but  the  gener.il  rule  in 
the  south  is,  to  import  from  abroad  every  fabricated  thing  that 
can  be  carried  in  ships,  such  as  household  furniture,  boats, 
boards,  laths,  carts,  ploughs,  axes,  and  axehelves,  besides  in 
numerable  other  things,  which  free  communities  are  accus 
tomed  to  make  for  themselves.  What  is  most  wonderful  is, 
that  the  forests  and  iron  mines  of  the  south  supply,  in  great 
part,  the  materials  out  of  which  these  things  ore  made.  The 
northern  freemen  come  with  their  ships,  carry  home  the  tim 
ber  and  pig  iron,  work  them  up,  supply  their  own  wants  with 
a  part,  and  then  sell  the  rest  at  a  good  profit  in  the  southern 
markets.  Now,  although  mechanics,  by  setting  up  their  shops 
in  the  south,  could  save  all  these  freights  and  profits,  yet  so 
it  is,  that  northern  mechanics  will  not  settle  in  the  south,  and 
the  southern  mechanics  are  undersold  by  their  northern  com 
petitors. 

Now  connect  with  these  wonderful  facts  another  fact,  and 
the  mystery  is  solved.  The  number  of  mechanics,  in  differ 
ent  parts  of  the  south,  is  in  the  inverse  ratio  of  the  number 
of  slaves  ;  or  in  other  words,  where  the  slaves  form  the  largest 
proportion  of  the  inhabitants,  there  the  mechanics  and  manu 
facturers  form  the  least.  In  those  parts  only  where  the  slaves 
are  comparatively  few,  are  many  mechanics  and  artificers  to 
be  found  ;  but  even  in  these  parts  they  do  not  flourish  as  the 
same  useful  class  of  men  flourish  in  the  free  states.  Even 
in  our  Valley  of  Virginia,  remote  from  the  sea,  many  of  our 
mechanics  can  hardly  stand  against  northern  competition. 
This  can  be  attributed  only  to  slavery,  which  paralyzes  our 
energies,  disperses  our  population,  and  keeps  us  few  and  poor, 
in  spite  of  the  bountiful  gifts  of  nature  with  which  a  benign 
Providence  has  endowed  our  country. 

Of  all  the  states  in  this  Union,  not  one  has  on  the  whole 
such  various  and  abundant  resources  for  manufacturing  as 
our  own  Virginia,  both  East  and  West.  Only  think  of  her 
vast  forests  of  timber,  her  mountains  of  iron,  her  regions  of 
stone  coal,  her  valleys  of  limestone  and  marble,  her  fountains 
of  salt,  her  immense  sheep-walks  for  wool,  her  vicinity  to  the 
cotton  fields,  her  innumerable  waterfalls,  her  bays,  harbors, 
and  rivers  for  circulating  products  on  every  side  ;  —  in  short, 
every  material  and  every  convenience  necessary  for  manufac 
turing  industry. 


79 

Above  all,  think  of  Richmond,  nature's  chosen  site  for  the 
greatest  manufacturing  city  in  America, —  her  beds  of  coal 
ami  iron,  just  at  hand,  her  incomparable  water  power,  her 
tide-water  navigation,  conducting  sea  vessels  from  the  foot  of 
her  falls,  and  above  them  her  fine  canal  to  the  mountains, 
through  which  lie  the  shortest  routes  from  the  eastern  tides  to 
the  great  rivers  of  the  west  and  the  south-west.  Think,  also, 
that  this  Richmond,  in  old  Virginia,  "  the  mother  of  states," 
has  enjoyed  these  unparalleled  advantages  ever  since  the 
United  States  became  a  nation  ;  —  and  then  think  again,  that 
this  same  Richmond,  the  metropolis  of  all  Virginia,  has  fewer 
manufactures  than  a  third-rate  New  England  town;  —  fewer, 
—  not  than  the  new  city  of  Lowell,  which  is  beyond  all  compar 
ison, —  but  fewer  than  the  obscure  place  called  Fall  River, 
among  the  barren  hills  of  Massachusetts;  —  and  then,  fellow- 
citizens,  what  will  you  think,  —  what  must  you  think,  —  of  the 
cause  of  this  strange  phenomenon  ?  Or,  to  enlarge  the  scope 
of  the  question  :  What  must  you  think  has  caused  Virginians  in 
general  to  neglect  their  superlative  advantages  for  manufac 
turing  industry?  —  to  disregard  the  evident  suggestions  of 
nature,  pointing  out  to  them  this  fruitful  source  of  population, 
wealth,  and  comfort  ? 

Say  not  that  this  state  of  things  is  chargeable  to  the  apathy 
of  Virginians.  That  is  nothing  to  the  purpose,  for  it  does  not 
go  to  the  bottom  of  the  subject.  What  causes  the  apathy  ? 
That  is  the  question. 

The  last  census  gave  also  the  cost  of  constructing  new 
buildings  in  each  state,  exclusive  of  the  value  of  the  materials. 
The  amount  of  this  is  a  good  test  of  the  increase  of  wealth 
in  a  country.  To  compare  different  states  in  this  particular, 
we  must  divide  the  total  cost  of  building  by  the  number  of 
inhabitants,  and  see  what  the  average  will  be  for  each  inhab 
itant.  We  find  that  it  is  in  Massachusetts,  $3*60  ;  in  Con 
necticut,  $3-50  ;  in  New  York,  $3*00  ;  in  New  Jersey,  $2-70  ; 
in  Pennsylvania,  $3-10;  in  Maryland,  $2'30  ;  and  in  Vir 
ginia,  $1'10. 

No  state  has  greater  conveniences  for  ship  navigation  and 
ship  building  than  Virginia.  Yet  on  all  her  fine  tide  waters 
she  has  little  shipping  ;  and  what  she  has  is  composed  almost 
wholly  of  small  bay  craft  and  a  few  coasting  schooners. 

We  do  not  blame  our  southern  people  for  abstaining  from 


80 

all  employments  of  this  kind.  What  could  they  do?  Set 
their  negroes  to  building  ships  ?  Who  ever  imagined  such 
an  absurdity  ?  But  could  they  not  hire  white  men  to  do  such 
things  ?  No  ;  for,  in  the  first  place,  southern  white  men  have 
no  skill  in  such  matters  ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  northern 
workmen  cannot  be  hired  in  the  south,  without  receiving  a 
heavy  premium  for  working  in  a  slave  state. 

The  boast  of  our  West  Virginia  is  the  good  city  of  Wheel 
ing.  Would  that  she  was  six  times  as  large,  that  she  might 
equal  Pittsburg,  and  that  she  grew  five  times  as  fast,  that  she 
might  keep  up  with  her ! 

We  glory  in  Wheeling,  because  she  only,  in  Virginia,  de 
serves  to  be  called  a  manufacturing  town.  For  this  her  citi 
zens  deserve  to  be  crowned,  —  not  with  laurel, —  but  with  the 
solid  gold  of  prosperity.  But  how  came  it  that  WTheelirig, 
and  next  to  her,  Wellsburg, —  of  all  the  towns  in  Virginia, — 
should  become  manufacturing  towns  ?  Answer :  They 
breathe  the  atmosphere  of  free  states,  almost  touching  them 
on  both  sides.  But  again  ;  seeing  that  Wheeling,  as  a  seat 
for  manufactures,  is  equal  to  Pittsburg,  and  inferior  to  no  town 
in  America,  except  Richmond  ;  and  that,  moreover,  she  has 
almost  no  slaves ;  why  is  Wheeling  so  far  behind  Pittsburg, 
and  comparatively  so  slow  in  her  growth  ?  Answer :  She  is 
in  a  country  in  which  slavery  is  established  by  law. 

We  shall  explain,  by  examples,  how  a  few  slaves  in  a  coun 
try  may  do  its  citizens  more  immediate  injury  than  a  large 
number. 

When  a  white  family  own  fifty  or  one  hundred  slaves,  they 
can,  so  long  as  their  land  produces  well,  afford  to  be  indolent 
and  expensive  in  their  habits  ;  for  though  each  yields  only  a 
small  profit,  yet  each  member  of  the  family  has  ten  or  fifteen 
of  these  black  work-animals  to  toil  for  his  support.  It  is  not 
until  the  fields  grow  old,  and  the  crops  grow  short,  and  the 
negroes  and  the  overseer  take  nearly  all,  that  the  day  of  ruin 
can  be  no  longer  postponed.  If  the  family  be  not  very  indo 
lent  and  I'ery  expensive,  this  inevitable  day  may  not  come  be 
fore  the  third  generation.  But  the  ruin  of  small  slaveholders 
is  often  accomplished  in  a  single  lifetime. 

When  a  white  family  own  five  or  ten  slaves,  they  cannot 
afford  to  be  indolent  and  expensive  in  their  habits ;  for  one 
black  drudge  cannot  support  one  white  gentleman  or  lady. 


Yet,  because  they  arc  slaveholders,  this  family  will  feel  some 
aspirations  for  a  life  of  easy  gentility;  and  because  field  work 
and  kitchen  work  arc  negroes'  work,  the  young  gentlemen 
will  dislike  to  go  with  the  negroes  to  dirty  field  work,  and  the 
young  ladies  will  dislike  to  join  the  black  sluts  in  any  sort  of 
household  labor.  Such  unthrifty  sentiments  are  the  natural 
consequence  of  introducing  slaves  among  the  families  of  a 
country,  especially  negro  slaves.  They  infallibly  grow  and 
spread,  creating  among  the  white  families  a  distaste  for  all 
servile  labor,  and  a  desire  to  procure  slaves  who  may  take  all 
drudgery  off  their  hands.  Thus  general  industry  gives  way 
by  degrees  to  indolent  relaxation,  false  notions  of  dignity  and 
refinement,  and  a  taste  for  fashionable  luxuries.  Then  debts 
slyly  accumulate.  The  result  is,  that  many  families  are  com 
pelled  by  their  embarrassments  to  sell  off  and  leave  the 
country.  Many  who  are  unable  to  buy  slaves  leave  it  also,  . 
because  they  feel  degraded,  and  cannot  prosper,  where  sla- 
verv  exists.  Citizens  of  the  valley  !  is  it  not  so  ?  Is  not  this 
the  chief  reason  why  your  beautiful  country  does  not  prosper 
like  the  northern  valleys  ? 

We  have  examined  the  census  of  counties  for  the  last 
thirty  or  forty  years,  in  Maryland,  Virginia,  and  North  Caro 
lina,  with  the  view  to  discover  the  law  of  population  in  the 
northern  slave  states.  The  following  are  among  the  general 
results  :  — 

When  a  county  had  at  first  comparatively  few  slaves,  the 
slave  population,  except  near  the  free  borders,  gained  upon 
the  whites,  and  most  rapidly  in  the  older  parts  of  the 
country. 

The  population,  as  a  whole,  increased  so  long  as  the  slaves 
were  fewer  than  the  whites,  but  more  slowly  as  the  numbers 
approached  to  equality.  In  our  valley,  a  smaller  proportion 
of  slaves  had  the  effect  of  a  larger  one  in  East  Virginia,  to 
retard  the  increase  of  population. 

When  the  slaves  became  as  numerous  as  the  whites  in  the 
eastern  and  older  parts  of  the  country,  population  came  to  a 
stand  ;  when  they  outnumbered  the  whites,  it  declined.  Con 
sequently,  the  slave  population  has  tended  to  diffuse  itself 
equally  over  the  country,  rising  more  rapidly  as  it  was  fur 
ther  below  the  white  population,  and  going  down  when  it  had 
risen  above  them. 


82 

The  price  of  cotton  has  regulated  the  price  of  negroes  in 
Virginia  ;  and  so  it  must  continue  to  do  ;  hccause  slave  labor 
is  unprofitable  here,  and  nothing  keeps  up  the  price  of  slaves 
but  their  value  as  a  marketable  commodity  in  the  south. 
Eastern  negroes  and  western  cattle  are  alike  in  this,  that,  if 
the  market  abroad  go  down  or  be  closed,  both  sorts  of  ani 
mals,  the  horned  and  the  woolly-headed,  become  a  worthless 
drug  at  home.  The  fact  is,  that  our  eastern  brethren  must 
send  off,  on  any  terms,  the  increase  of  their  slaves,  because 
their  impoverished  country  cannot  sustain  even  its  present 
stock  of  negroes.  We  join  not  the  English  and  American 
abolition  cry  about  "  slave-breeding"  in  East  Virginia,  as  if  it 
were  a  chosen  occupation,  and  therefore  a  reproachful  one. 
It  is  no  such  thing,  but  a  case  of  dire  necessity,  and  many  a 
heartache  does  it  cost  the  good  people  there.  But  behold  in 
the  east  the  doleful  consequences  of  letting  slavery  grow  up 
to  an  oppressive  and  heart-sickening  burden  upon  a  commu 
nity  !  Cast  it  off,  West  Virginians,  whilst  yet  you  have  the 
power  ;  for  if  you  let  it  descend  unbroken  to  your  children, 
it  will  have  grown  to  a  mountain  of  misery  upon  their  heads. 

Good  policy  will  require  the  Southern  States,  ere  long,  lo 
close  their  markets  against  northern  negroes.  When  the 
southern  slave  market  is  closed,  or  when,  by  the  reduced  prof 
its  of  slave  labor  in  the  south,  it  becomes  glutted, —  then  the 
stream  of  Virginia  negroes,  heretofore  pouring  down  upon 
the  south,  will  be  thrown  back  upon  the  state,  and,  like  a 
river  dammed  up,  must  spread  itself  over  the  whole  territory 
of  the  commonwealth.  The  head  spring  in  East  Virginia 
cannot  contain  itself;  it  must  find  vent;  it  will  shed  its  black 
streams  through  every  gap  of  the  Blue  Ridge  and  pour  over 
the  Alleghany,  till  it  is  checked  by  abolitionism  on  the  bor 
ders.  But  even  abolitionism  cannot  finally  stop  it.  Aboli 
tionism  itself  will  tolerate  slavery,  when  slaveholders  grow 
sick  and  tired  of  it. 

In  plain  terms,  fellow-citizens,  eastern  slaveholders  will 
come  with  their  multitudes  of  slaves  to  settle  upon  the  fresh 
lands  of  West  Virginia.  Eastern  slaves  will  be  sent  by  thou 
sands  for  a  market  in  West  Virginia.  Every  valley  will 
echo  with  the  cry,  "  Negroes !  Negroes  for  sale !  Dog 
cheap  !  Dog  cheap  !  "  And  because  they  are  dog  cheap, 
many  of  our  people  will  buy  them.  We  have  shown  how 


83 

slavery  has  prepared  the  people  for  this ;  how  a  little  slavery 
makes  way  for  more,  and  how  the  law  of  slave  increase  op- 
rrntes  to  fill  up  every  part  of  the  country  to  the  same  level 
with  slaves. 

And  then,  fellow-citizens,  when  you  have  suffered  your 
country  to  be  filled  with  negro  slaves  instead  of  white  free 
men  ;  when  its  population  shall  be  as  motley  as  Joseph's  coat 
of  many  colors  ;  as  ring-streaked  and  speckled  as  father 
Jacob's  flock  was  in  Padan  Aram, —  what  will  the  white  basis 
of  representation  avail  you,  if  you  obtain  it?  Whether  you 
obtain  it  or  not,  East  Virginia  will  have  triumphed  ;  or,  rather, 
slavery  will  have  triumphed,  and  all  Virginia  will  have  be 
come  a  land  of  darkness  and  of  the  shadow  of  death. 

Then,  by  a  forbearance  which  has  no  merit,  and  a  supine- 
ness  which  has  no  excuse,  you  will  have  given  to  your  chil 
dren,  for  their  inheritance,  this  lovely  land  blackened  with  a 
negro  population,  —  the  offscourings  of  Eastern  Virginia, 
the  fag-end  of  slavery,  the  loathsome  dregs  of  that  cup  of 
abomination  which  has  already  sickened  to  death  the  eastern 
half  of  our  commonwealth. 

Delay,  not,  then,  we  beseech  you,  to  raise  a  barrier  against 
this  Stygian  inundation,  to  stand  at  the  Blue  Ridge,  and 
with  sovereign  energy  say  to  this  Black  Sea  of  misery, 
"  Hitherto  shalt  thou  come,  and  no  farther." 


84 


SKETCH 

OF  THE  OPENING  ARGUMENT  IN  THE  CASE  OF  THE  UNITED 
STATES  vs.  DANIEL  DRAYTON,  INDICTED,  (IN  FORTY-ONE  SEV 
ERAL  BILLS  OF  INDICTMENT,)  FOR  STEALING  AND  CARRYING 

AWAY,    IN    THE    SCHOONER   PEARL,    A    CARGO    OF    SLAVES    FROM 

WASHINGTON,  IN  THE  DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA,  ON  THE  NIGHT 

OF    THE     15TH    OF    APRIL,    1848  ;    TRIED     BEFORE     THOMAS    H. 

CRAWFORD,  JUDGE  OF  THE  CRIMINAL  COURT  OF  THE  DIS 
TRICT  OF  COLUMBIA.  P.  B.  KEY,  DISTRICT  ATTORNEY  ;  HOR 
ACE  MANN  AND  JAMES  M.  CARLISLE,  COUNSEL  FOR  THE  PRIS 
ONER. 

GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  JURY  ; 

I  rise  before  you  under  circumstances  rarely  ex 
ceeded  in  embarrassment.  I  am  an  utter  stranger  to 
his  honor,  the  judge,  and  to  all  of  you,  gentlemen, 
who  compose  the  jury.  Among  all  the  eager  faces  in 
this  crowded  hall,  there  is  not  one  with  which  I  am 
familiar.  I  suppose  there  is  not  one  man  in  this  vast 
assembly  who  has  any  sympathy  for  my  client  or 
for  me. 

The  case  before  us  is  acknowledged,  on  all  sides, 
to  be  one  of  great  moment.  It  directly  affects  human 
interests,  —  large  pecuniary  interests,  —  and  these  are 
among  the  most  active  and  powerful  of  human  impulses. 
It  is  a  case  which  has  given  birth  to  great  excitement. 
It  has  been  narrated  with  formidable  exaggerations  in 
the  public  papers  ;  it  has  been  angrily  discussed  in  both 
houses  of  Congress,  and  bruited  over  the  land.  From 
what  has  transpired  in  and  about  this  court  room,  since 
the  trial  commenced,  I  perceive  that  each  individual 
seems  not  only  to  be  convinced  that  the  prisoner  at  the 
bar  has  committed  a  great  offence,  but,  like  a  light 


85 

reflected  from  a  multiplying  glass,  he  sees  that  offence 
multiplied  a  thousand  fold  in  the  opinions  and  feelings 
of  those  around  him.  I  cannot  forbear  to  add,  that  it 
is  a  case,  also,  which,  in  some  of  its  aspects,  touches 
the  deepest  and  tenderest  sympathies  of  the  human 
heart  ;  for  this  prosecution  not  only  deals  with  human 
beings  as  offenders,  but  with  human  beings  and  human 
rights,  as  the  subject  matters  of  the  offence. 

We  have  been  called  to  trial,  too,  at  an  untimely 
hour.  I  have  not  had  time  for  the  preparation  and 
investigation  which  so  important  a  case  demands. 
Added  to  this,  my  colleague,  [Mr.  CARLISLE,]  was  taken 
ill  on  the  day  he  was  retained,  and,  until  the  even 
ing  immediately  preceding  the  commencement  of  the 
trial,  I  had  no  opportunity  for  a  single  interview  with 
him,  and  then  but  for  an  hour,  in  his  sick  chamber. 
During  all  this  time,  too,  as  some  of  you  may  know, 
my  attention  has  been  called  away  by  official  duties 
elsewhere. 

Gentlemen,  let  me  come  a  little  closer  to  my  rela 
tions  to  this  case  and  to  yourselves.  I  stand  here,  on 
this  side  of  the  table ;  you  sit  there,  on  the  other  side. 
Our  persons  are  near  to  each  other :  but  should  I  not 
greatly  deceive  myself,  were  I  to  suppose  that  our 
opinions  were  as  near  together  as  our  persons  ?  We 
are  within  shaking-hands'  distance  of  each  other  ;  still, 
our  convictions  and  sentiments  on  certain  subjects 
may  be  wide  asunder  as  the  poles.  On  a  subject  of 
vast  importance  and  gravity,  — a  subject  reflected  from 
every  feature  of  this  case,  — I  was  born,  and  from  my 
birth  have  been  trained  up,  in  one  set  of  ideas  ;  and  I 
mean  no  discourtesy  when  I  say  that  you  have  been 
born  and  trained  in  another  set  of  ideas.  Hence  it  is  nat 
ural,  yes,  it  is  inevitable,  —  is  it  not  ?  —  that  we  should 
approach  this  subject  with  widely  different  views,  and, 
as  it  were,  from  opposite  points  of  the  moral  compass. 
I  am  admonished,  then,  in  the  outset,  that  your  pre- 
8 


86 

possessions  are  against  me.  The  frame  of  your  minds 
must  be  adverse  to  the  reception  of  my  views.  We 
are  in  a  position  where  the  hearer,  consciously  or  un 
consciously,  braces  himself  against  the  pressure  of 
the  speaker's  arguments.  And  of  all  difficult  positions 
in  which  advocate  or  orator  was  ever  placed,  the  most 
difficult  is  that  of  encountering  the  honest  antipathies 
of  his  hearers.  The  heart,  secure  in  its  own  convic 
tions,  closes  itself  against  the  argument  that  would 
overthrow  them,  as  a  fond  parent  bars  his  doors  against 
the  foe  that  would  carry  away  his  children. 

But,  gentlemen,  amid  all  these  adverse  circum 
stances,  and  amid  these  conflicts  of  hostile  and  perhaps 
irreconcilable  feelings,  is  there  not  some  common 
ground  on  which  you  and  I  can  stand  together,  and 
greet  each  other  as  brethren  ?  Is  there  not  one  spot 
where  we  can  stand  side  by  side,  as  friends,  sympa 
thize  with  each  other,  and  act  together  in  harmony  ? 
Yes,  gentlemen,  there  is  one  such  spot.  It  is  the 
ground  of  DUTY.  In  this  case,  I  have  certain  duties 
to  perform  ;  you,  too,  have  certain  duties  to  perform  ; 
and  the  feeling  of  a  common  duty  is  always  creative 
of  the  feeling  of  brotherhood.  We  are  called  to  these 
duties  as  by  the  voice  of  God  ;  we  are  to  perform 
them  as  under  the  eye  of  the  Omniscient.  Here  we 
are  embarked  in  a  common  cause.  From  this  moment, 
then,  let  all  feelings  of  alienation  or  repugnance  be 
banished  from  between  us. 

Gentlemen,  this  prisoner  has  requested  me  to  be  his 
counsel  ;  and  I,  perhaps  unwisely,  have  acceded  to  his 
request.  I  have  taken  an  oath  to  be  true  to  him. 
This  has  imposed  certain  responsibilities  upon  me, 
which,  before  Heaven,  I  may  not  escape.  In  this  I 
find  my  strength.  With  the  fierce  excitement,  which 
blazed  forth  in  this  District  when  the  prisoners  of  the 
"  Pearl"  were  first  arrested,  still  hot  around  me  ;  with 
the  generally  adverse  feelings  which  I  suppose  you 


87     . 

entertain  towards  the  side  of  the  cause  which  1  have 
espoused,  and  therefore  against  its  advocate ;  with 
these  thronged  spectators,  who  show,  at  every  turn 
and  incident  of  the  trial,  what  their  feelings  are  towards 
the  prisoner  and  his  defenders,  I  should  not  be  able 
to  stand  here  one  moment,  were  it  not  for  the  support 
ing,  uplifting  sentiment,  glowing  through  every  fibre 
of  my  frame,  that  I  am  here  in  the  performance  of  a 
high  and  holy  duty.  In  all  else  I  may  be  weak;  in 
this  I  am  strong.* 

So  you,  gentlemen,  sit  there  to  perform  a  duty. 
Swearing  upon  the  Holy  Evangelists,  you  have  invoked 
the  vengeance  of  Heaven  upon  your  souls,  if,  con 
sciously  and  wittingly,  you  swerve  a  hair's  breadth  from 
the  line  of  rectitude;  if  you  allow  any  partiality  in 
favor  of  a  cherished  institution,  or  any  prejudice  against 
the  prisoner,  to  close  your  eyes  or  blind  your  minds  to 
any  fact  of  evidence  or  rule  of  law  which  may  be  ad 
duced  in  his  behalf. 

I  might  even  add  a  consideration  of  a  lighter  nature 
leading  to  the  same  result.  Your  fortune  and  mine, 
for  some  days  to  come,  I  suppose  to  be  settled.  I 
know  not  how  protracted  this  trial  may  be,  but,  gen 
tlemen,  we  are  in  it,  for  longer  or  shorter,  for  better  or 
worse  ;  and  while  we  are  in  it,  we  shall  be  obliged  to 
Come  together  from  day  today,  and  live  in  each  other's 
presence  and  company.  Now,  I  trust  you  have  too 
much  philosophy  about  you  to  make  bad  worse.  And 
so  of  myself.  Were  we  fellow-travellers  in  the  same 
stage-coach  or  steamboat,  and  were  doomed  to  be  so 
for  a  week  or  a  fortnight,  it  would  be  most  unwise  to 
add  to  our  inevitable  discomforts  that  of  striving  to 
annoy  each  other  ;  so,  when  packed  together  in  this 
room,  which  seems  to  have  been  constructed  for 

*  In  attendance  upon  the  trial,  and  stationing  themselves  as  near 
as  practicable  to  the  counsel  for  the  defence,  were  men  who  cocked 
pistols  and  drew  dirks  upon  Drayton,  in  the  mob  that  pursued  him. 


88 

creatures  that  do  not  breathe,  and  with  the  thermom 
eter  above  ninety  degrees,  I  trust  any  icy  feelings  we 
may  have  had  towards  each  other  will  speedily  melt 
away.  In  a  word,  I  heartily  concur,  and  I  trust  you 
will  do  the  same,  in  the  opinion  of  the  old  man  who 
declared,  according  to  the  anecdote,  that  after  the  ex 
perience  of  a  long  life,  he  had  found  it  best  to  submit 
to  what  he  could  not  possibly  help. 

What,  then,  is  the  business  before  us  ?  Daniel  Dray- 
ton  is  set  here  at  the  bar  charged  with  a  grave  offence, 
and  you  are  impanelled  to  try  him.  And  who  is 
Daniel  Drayton  ?  We  shall  prove  to  you  that  he  is  a 
man  of  sober  and  industrious  life,  against  whose  char 
acter,  as  a  just,  upright,  exemplary  citizen,  no  charge 
was  ever  before  preferred.  Whatever  may  have  been 
his  errors  in  regard  to  the  transaction  which  has  brought 
him  before  you,  he  has,  in  consequence  of  it,  passed 
through  scenes  which  must  move  your  sympathy. 
He  has  been  torn  from  his  family  and  immured  in  a 
loathsome  cell.  From  feeling  that  sense  of  security 
from  lawless  violence,  which  every  man,  whether  guilty 
or  innocent,  is  entitled  to  feel,  he  has  been  in  imminent 
danger  of  being  torn  in  pieces  by  an  infuriated  mob. 
Yes,  gentlemen,  on  Tuesday,  the  eighteenth  day  of 
April  last,  this  man,  this  fellow-citizen  of  ours,  in  this 
capital  of  the  nation,  within  sight  of  Congress,  and  of" 
the  President's  house,  and  within  hearing  of  them,  too, 
was  pursued  by  a  mob,  from  near  the  river's  side  on 
the  south  of  us  to  the  very  doors  of  the  jail  on  the 
north,  —  a  mob  estimated  to  consist  of  from  four  to 
six  thousand  people,  —  many  of  them  armed  with 
deadly  weapons  ;  the  thrusts  of  a  dirk  knife,  which 
was  drawn  upon  him,  coming  within  an  inch  of  his 
body  ;  amid  wrathful  cries  of  "  Hang  him  !  "  "  Lynch 
him  !  "  accompanied  by  all  the  profanities  and  abomina 
tions  of  speech  which  usually  issue  from  the  foul  throat 
of  that  hideous  monster  —  A  MOB.  Arrived  at  the 


89 

jail,  the  mob  besieged  him  there.  When  afterwards, 
and  while  under  examination  before  magistrates  of  the 
city,  a  distinguished  gentleman  and  member  of  Con 
gress.  [the  Hon.  Joshua  II.  Giddings,  of  Ohio,]  appeared 
at  his  request  and  in  his  defence,  the  mob  snr- 
munded  the  gates  of  the  jail,  demanding  the  imme 
diate  expulsion  of  the  counsel  ;  and  the  jailer,  to  save 
bloodshed,  insisted  upon  his  departure.  The  storm 
swept  beyond  the  prison  and  the  prisoner.  It  assailed 
all  who  were  supposed  to  sympathize  with  him.  The 
office  of  a  newspaper  in  this  city,  (the  National  Era,) 
was  threatened  with  demolition.  At  a  mob  meeting, 
votes  were  passed,  —  without  any  great  scrutiny,  I 
presume,  into  the  qualifications  of  the  voters,  —  that 
the  paper  should  be  discontinued.  Its  editor  was  wait 
ed  upon  at  night,  or  at  midnight,  by  a  mob-elected 
committee,  and  a  peremptory  demand  was  made  upon 
him  to  remove  his  establishment  beyond  the  District, 
or  to  abandon  it. 

But  I  will  not  dwell  longer  upon  these  details,  so  dis 
graceful  to  the  capital  of  a  republic  that  calls  itself 
//TC,  and  so  abhorrent  to  the  feelings  of  every  right- 
minded  man.  Were  I  to  enumerate  all  the  perils,  the 
indignities,  and  the  privations  to  which  my  client 
has  been  subjected,  the  day  would  be  too  short  for  the 
narration. 

After  Drayton's  examination,  he  was  held  to  bail. 
And  what,  think  you,  was  the  amount  of  the  bail  de 
manded  ?  Seventy-six  thousand  dollars  !  and  seventy-six 
thousand  dollars  also  for  each  of  the  other  prisoners,  — 
for  the  seventy-six  alleged  slaves,  when  the 


common  market  value  of  such  slaves  in  this  neighbor 
hood  would  not,  I  suppose,  be  more  than  three  or  four 
hundred  dollars  apie.ce  ;  —  and  though  all  of  them,  too, 
had  been  returned,  and  were  in  possession  of  their  claim 
ants  at  the  time.  Has  the  fact  never  yet  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  magistrates  of  the  District  of  Co- 
8* 


90 

lumbia,  that    the    constitution   of   the    United    States 
declares   that  "  excessive  bail  shall  not  be  required  "  ? 

But.  gentlemen,  these  are  not  the  only  hardships  and 
oppressions  to  which  my  client  has  been  subjected. 
How  many,  at  the  most,  are  the  offences  against  the 
laws  of  this  District  which  he  has  committed?  He 
came  here  on  the  13th  of  April,  in  the  schooner  Pearl. 
He  departed  on  the  loth.  On  the  17th,  he  was  arrest 
ed  near  the  mouth  of  the  Potomac,  with  a  company  of 
alleged  slaves  on  board  his  vessel.  Was  not  this 
all  one  transaction  ?  Can  it  be  divided  and  separated 
into  a  multitude  of  distinct  offences?  Can  this  one 
deed  be  made  an  offence  against  different  laws?  If  riot, 
then  there  is  another  clause  in  the  constitution  set  at 
nought,  —  that  clause  which  declares  that  no  person 
shall  be  "  subject  for  the  same  offence  to  be  twice  put 
in  jeopardy  of  life  or  limb." 

And  yet,  gentlemen,  what  do  we  find  on  the  records 
of  this  court?  One  hundred  and  fifteen  indictments 
against  this  prisoner  for  this  one  act  ;  and  one  hundred 
and  fifteen  indictments  also  against  each  of  the  other 
prisoners  for  engaging  in  the  same.  Three  hundred 
and  forty-five  indictments  !  Reams  of  indictments  for 
a  single  deed  !  Nor  is  this  the  only  injustice.  Each 
of  the  prisoners  is  indicted  for  having  violated,  by  this 
one  act,  separate  and  distinct  laws.  There  is  an  old  law 
of  Maryland  against  stealing  slaves,  and  another  law 
against  transporting  them  out  of  the  jurisdiction ;  and 
these  laws  are  claimed,  by  virtue  of  an  act  of  Congress, 
to  be  in  force  in  this  District.  Now,  if  the  prisoner 
stole  the  slaves,  he  is  not.  guilty  of  the  separate  offence 
of  transporting.  If  he  is  guilty  of  transporting,  he 
is  not  guilty  of  stealing.  That  the  two  offences  should 
have  been  committed  by  one  and  the  same  act,  is  a 
legal  impossibility.  If  the  grand  jury  first  found  the 
prisoner  guilty  of  the  offence  of  stealing  the  slaves, 
they  thereby  declared  that  he  was  not  guilty  of  the 


91 

different  offence  of  transporting.  Or,  if  they  first 
found  him  guilty  of  the  offence  of  transporting,  they 
thereby  declared  that  lie  was  not  guilty  of  the  separate 
offence  of  stealing.  To  proceed,  therefore,  after  a  find 
ing  for  one  oifence,  to  charge  the  prisoner  with  the 
other,  was  not  only  a  legal  absurdity,  but  a  grievous 
injustice. 

Besides,  if  these  slaves  were  stolen,  as  is  alleged, 
from  forty-one  different  masters,  the  whole  might  have 
been  charged  in  different  counts  in  the  same  indict 
ment,  and  the  prisoner  might  be  found  guilty  upon  as 
many  of  the  counts  as  law  and  evidence  would  warrant. 

So  there  was  but  one  act  of  transportation.  Even, 
therefore,  if  it  were  just  to  charge  the  prisoner  with 
the  breach  of  two  different  laws  for  the  same  act, 
still,  as  the  transportation  of  the  whole  was  but  one, 
it  should  have  been  charged  only  in  one  indictment. 

See  how  fatal  to  any  man  must  such  a  course  of 
proceeding  be.  If  the  stealing  were  charged  in  one 
indictment,  it  would  be  tried  by  one  jury  ;  and  the 
evidence  being  to  a  great  degree  the  same,  the  whole 
trial  might  be  brought  within  a  limited  period  of  time. 
But  with  forty-one  indictments,  there  must  be  forty- 
one  trials,  before  forty-one  different  juries  ;  for  neither 
government  nor  prisoner  would  consent  that  a  jury, 
who  had  given  an  adverse  verdict,  should  try  another 
of  the  cases.  Now,  gentlemen,  I  care  not  for  the  enor 
mous  expense  of  such  a  proceeding,  —  ten  dollars  on 
each  indictment,  enuring  to  the  benefit  of  the  district 
attorney,  — 

Here  Mr.  KEY,  the  district  attorney,  interrupted  and 
said  :  If  Mr.  Mann  thinks  I  am  to  have  ten  dollars  on 
each  of  these  indictments,  he  is  mistaken  ;  and  in  my 
argument  to  the  jury  I  shall  deny  it. 

Mr.  CARLISLE.  Mr.  Mann  is  not  mistaken  in  the 
general  statement,  that  the  district  attorney  receives 
ten  dollars  on  each  indictment.  He  receives  ten  dol- 


92 

lars  on  each,  until  the  income  of  his  office  amounts  to 
six  thousand  dollars  a  year.  It  is  only  when  the 
emoluments  of  the  office  reach  that  sum  that  he  ceases 
to  draw  his  ten  dollars  on  each  indictment. 

Mr.  MANN.  I  was  saying,  gentlemen,  that  I  care 
comparatively  nothing  for  the  amount  of  expense  in 
curred  in  consequence  of  these  three  hundred  and 
forty-five  indictments.  Far  graver  consequences  than 
the  mere  expenditure  of  money  are  involved.  Who 
can  maintain  or  survive  a  contest  against  such  a  host 
of  indictments,  sustained  by  all  the  power  and  resour 
ces  of  the  government  ?  Were  a  man  rich  as  Croe- 
sus,  it  would  exhaust  his  means.  Were  he  brave  as  a 
martyr,  it  would  outweary  his  endurance.  Were  he 
innocent  as  a  child  unborn,  still,  on  the  mere  doctrine 
of  chances,  he  might  fail  in  some  one  qase,  out  of  such 
a  multitude.  Were  he  in  the  prime  of  life,  its  setting 
sun  might  go  down  in  darkness  and  sorrow  before  the 
final  verdict  of  acquittal  could  be  pronounced  in  his 
favor.  Under  such  a  practice  with  regard  to  indict 
ments,  coupled  with  such  a  practice  in  regard  to  bail, 
an  accusation  would  be  as  fatal  as  crime  itself,  how 
ever  innocent  the  accused  might  be.  The  law  provides 
a  statute  of  limitations  as  to  offences.  Could  it  have 
foreseen  such  an  abuse  as  this,  it  would  have  provided 
a  statute  of  limitations  against  the  number  of  prosecu 
tions  for  a  single  offence  ;  for  the  government  might  as 
well  try  a  man,  on  a  separate  indictment,  for  each  hair 
of  a  horse  he  had  stolen,  and  hold  him,  on  each  of 
them,  to  separate  bail.  The  English  courts,  gentle 
men,  have  provided  a  remedy  for  the  beginnings  of 
this  injustice.  They  have  decided,  again  and  again, 
that  when  even  two  indictments  are  found  against  a 
man  for  the  same  offence,  they  will  compel  the  prose 
cutor  to  make  his  election  between  them,  —  to  proceed 
upon  one  and  abandon  the  other.  2  Leach's  Or.  Gas., 
608,  Rex  vs.  Doran.  3  Carr.  &  P.  412,  Rex  vs.  Smith. 


03 

Ib.  Rex  vs.  Flower,  413.  3  T.  R.  Young  vs.  The 
A7//£-,  (in  error,)  106.  See,  also,  in  support  of  the 
same  principle,  New  York  Revised  Statutes,  vol. 
2,  part  4,  ch.  2,  <§>  42,  where  provision  is  made  that 
"  if  there  be  at  any  time  pending  against  the  same 
defendant  two  or  more  indictments  for  the  same 
offence,  or  two  indictments  for  the  same  matter, 
although  charged  as  different  offences,  the  indictment 
first  found  shall  be  deemed  to  be  superseded  by  such 
second  indictment,  and  shall  be  quashed." 

But,  gentlemen,  there  is  another  aspect  of  this  case, 
which  presents,  in  a  manner  still  more  glaring,  the 
enormity  of  the  proceeding  to  which  we  are  subjected. 
Under  each  of  the  forty-one  indictments  against  this 
prisoner  for  stealing,  he  is  liable,  if  convicted,  to  be 
sentenced  to  twenty  years' imprisonment, 'which  would 
make  an  aggregate  imprisonment  of  more  than  eight 
hundred  years.  Methuselah  himself  must  have  been 
caught  young,  in  order  to  survive  such  a  sentence. 
The  very  shortest  time  which  the  court,  in  its  discre 
tion,  could  imprison,  after  a  conviction  on  all  these  in 
dictments,  would  be  two  hundred  and  eighty-seven 
years  !  Did  the  law  ever  contemplate  so  cruel  and  re 
vengeful  a  proceeding  ?  Did  the  law  ever  suppose  that 
the  court,  after  having  sentenced  a  man  to  eight  hun 
dred  years'  imprisonment,  or  even  to  two  hundred  and 
eighty  years'  imprisonment,  should  go  on,  and  sentence 
him  to  twenty  years,  or  even  to  seven  years  more  ?  — 
when  the  court  must  know  that  it  would  be  imposing 
sentences  to  be  executed  centuries  after  the  prisoner 
would  be  dead,  and  after  he  would  have  left  his  prison, 
not  to  return  to  this  world,  but  to  go  to  another. 

But  even  this  is  not  all.  Behind  these  forty-one 
indictments  for  stealing  stand  drawn  up,  in  battle  array, 
against  this  same  prisoner,  seventy-four  other  indict 
ments  for  transporting  the  very  slaves  whom  he  is 
charged  to  have  stolen.  The  penalty  for  each  of  these 


94 

offences  is  a  fine  of  two  hundred  dollars,  with  impris 
onment  till  paid.  The  aggregate  of  these  fines  would 
be  $14,800.  But  a  penalty  not  inflicted  by  the  statute, 
but  superadded  by  this  unwarrantable  proceeding  of 
the  government,  is  the  defence  of  seventy-four  succes 
sive  cases,  under  which  the  wealthiest,  the  strongest, 
and  the  most  innocent  man  must  break  down,  and  be 
swept  to  ruin. 

Corresponding  with  the  oppressive  character  of  all 
these  preliminaries  was  the  manner  of  the  prosecutor, 
in  his  opening  argument.  He  has  seen  fit  to  use 
language  against  the  prisoner  the  most  vehement  and 
denunciatory.  He  has  imputed  to  him  every  base 
motive  that  can  actuate  a  depraved  heart,  and  showered 
upon  him  the  coarsest  epithets  that  can  describe  a 
villain.  Now  if  it  shall  turn  out  that  my  client  is  in 
nocent,  then  all  these  criminations  are  unjust  and 
cruel  ;  and  even  should  it  be  proved  that  he  is  guilty, 
it  is  no  part  of  his  punishment  to  be  compelled  to  sit 
here  in  enforced  silence,  hour  after  hour,  and  hear 
himself  denounced  and  vilified  in  language  as  unfitted 
to  his  character  as  to  the  sobriety  of  judicial  proceedings. 

Gentlemen,  the  representative  of  the  government, 
like  the  government  itself,  should  be  dispassionate  and 
calm.  Majesty  is  one  of  the  attributes  of  sovereignty, 
and  serenity  is  inseparable  from  majesty.  The  gov 
ernment  is  not  a  being  of  wrath,  of  ferocity,  of  vin- 
dictiveness  ;  and  the  exhibition  of  such  passions  is  as 
unsuitable  to  the  representative  of  the  government  as 
to  the  government  itself.  Though  the  image  of  jus 
tice  may  be  represented  as  holding  the  sword  of  power 
in  one  hand,  yet  she  is  also  represented  as  holding  the 
balance  of  equity  in  the  other ;  but  when  the  govern 
ment  assumes  the  guilt  of  the  prisoner,  before  it  has 
been  found,  and  denounces  him  in  bitterest  epithets  as 
criminal,  while  as  yet  the  law  presumes  him  to  be  in 
nocent, —  the  only  proper  emblem  of  such  a  govern- 


95 

merit  is  an  image  which,  a  few  years  ago,  might  have 
been  seen  surmounting  the  dome  of  the  court  house  in 
Taunton,  in  the  county  of  Somersetshire,  in  England, 
to  which  the  artist  had  originally  given  both  the  bal 
ance  and  the  sword  ;  but  a  storm,  careering  through 
the  sky,  had  swept  the  balance  away,  so  that  nothing 
but  the  avenging  sword  was  left ;  and  there  the  hate 
ful  figure  stood  aloft,  an  image  of  wrath  untempered 
by  equity. 

But,  gentlemen,  let  me  trust  that  the  prisoner  has  at 
length  escaped  from  the  turbulent  and  perilous  scenes 
which  have  hitherto  destroyed  his  peace  and. threatened 
his  life.  Let  me  trust  that  the  fell  spirits  which 
prompted  the  proposal,  made  by  one  of  his  captors 
while  he  was  yet  on  board  the  steamboat,  and  pre 
vious  to  his  return  to  this  city,  that  he  should  be 
brought  up  and  hung  at  the  yard-arm,  —  as  was  testi 
fied  to  by  the  government's  witnesses,  —  is  at  length 
exorcised  ;  let  me  trust  that  the  demoniac  cry  of  ven 
geance  which  was  shouted  by  the  mob,  and  the  thirst 
for  blood  which  their  conduct  betokened,  while  the 
prisoner,  bound  and  defenceless,  was  conducted  from 
the  river  to  the  jail,  has  found  no  welcoming  response 
in  your  bosoms.  Let  me  trust,  also,  that  the  violence 
of  manner  and  the  bitterness  of  language  which  have 
been  so  freely  employed  in  the  opening  of  this  case, 
have  not  disturbed  the  balance  of  your  minds,  or  so 
ruffled  their  serenity  that  the  images  of  truth  shall  be 
distorted  as  they  are  reflected  from  them. 

Gentlemen,  the  spot  on  which  a  jury  are  seated 
should  be  a  place  separate  and  apart  from  the  rest  of 
the  world  ;  sacred,  and  inaccessible  to  the  passions  and 
prejudices  that  move  the  community  without.  It 
should  be  a  place  consecrated  to  the  inquiry,  "  What 
is  truth  ? "  and  to  the  application  of  its  conclusions  to 
the  conduct  of  men.  When  you  took  your  seats  in 
that  place,  you  were  severally  asked  by  the  court 


96 

whether  you  had  formed  any  opinion  respecting  the 
guilt  or  innocence  of  the  prisoner,  and  you  severally 
answered  in  the  negative.  The  final  opinion,  then, 
Avhich  shall  be  expressed  in  your  verdict,  must  be 
an  opinion  which  you  have  formed  since  that  time, 
and  from  the  law  and  testimony  here  introduced. 
Into  that  opinion,  no  other  element  must  be  allowed 
to  enter.  The  prejudged  guilt  of  the  prisoner,  as  man 
ifested  by  repeated  attempts  to  take  his  life  ;  the  de 
mand  which  may  exist,  and  which  I  suppose  does 
exist,  out  of  doors,  that  he  shall  be  convicted,  inno 
cent  or  guilty  j  the  anticipation  that  you  are  to  meet  an 
angry  community,  if  you  acquit  him  ;  —  all  these  con 
siderations,  if  they  obtrude  upon  your  minds,  must  be 
sternly  rebuked  and  banished.  The  record  of  your 
verdict  will  survive  these  temporary  excitements.  It 
should  be  a  verdict,  therefore,  which  you  can  look 
upon,  at  the  close  of  life,  with  conscientious  satisfac 
tion.  It  must  be  one  which  your  children  can  look  at 
with  a  filial  and  honorable  regard  for  their  fathers'  up 
rightness.  In  a  case  which  has  excited  so  much  atten 
tion,  both  here  and  throughout  the  country,  you,  too, 
must  expect  to  be  put  on  trial ;  your  verdict  will  go 
into  the  great  record  of  history,  to  be  passed  upon- by 
your  country  and  by  posterity. 

Once,  gentlemen,  in  the  state  to  which  I  belong,  a 
case  arose  in  which  the  deepest  and  holiest  feelings  of 
the  community  were  intensely  excited.  One  of  the 
preludes  to  the  great  drama  of  the  American  revolu 
tion  was  the  slaughtering,  in  the  year  1770,  of  five 
American  citizens,  in  the  streets  of  Boston,  by  the 
British  soldiery.  The  supposed  offenders  were  brought 
to  trial  for  the  homicide.  They  were  defended  by 
John  Adams  and  Josiah  Q,uincy,  —  illustrious  names  ! 
The  public  breast  throbbed  with  excitement.  The 
sight  of  butchered  countrymen  made  the  blood  seethe 
in  the  hearts  of  their  fellow-citizens.  If  there  ever 


97 

could  be  a  case  where  the  law  might  be  wrested  to 
meet  the  popular  outcry  for  redress  ;  if  there  ever 
could  be  a  case  where  the  evidence  might  he  strained 
and  distorted  to  bring  the  facts  within  strained  and 
distorted  law,  so  as  to  visit  a  high  outrage  with  a 
moral,  if  not  a  legal  penalty,  the  "  Boston  Massacre  " 
of  1770  supplied  all  its  conditions.  That  cause  was 
tried,  and  the  prisoners  were  acquitted.  The  storm 
of  popular  disaffection  soon  cleared  away,  and  now 
twelve  purer  and  fairer  names  are  not  inscribed 
on  the  roll  of  fame  than  the  names  of  those  twelve 
jurymen,  who  dared  to  brave  public  opinion,  and  to 
perform  an  act  of  arduous,  if  not  of  perilous  justice. 
\oble  and  illustrious  bravery  of  the  soul,  which,  when 
the  yelling  fiends  of  popular  passion  and  prejudice 
beset  the  ascending  pathway  of  virtue,  can  look  to 
conscience,  to  posterity,  and  to  God,  and  defy  them  all ! 
Follow  their  example,  gentlemen,  and,  whatever  fierce 
sounds  of  public  condemnation  may  be  now  rung  in 
your  ears,  you  will  have  the  same  glorious  reward,  and 
your  children,  and  all  the  good  men  of  your  country, 
will  honor  your  memories. 

Gentlemen,  in  the  vehement  appeals  which  were 
made  to  you  by  the  government's  counsel,  for  the  con 
demnation  of  the  prisoner,  you  were  told  that  he  had 
"  invaded  this  District,  and  ruthlessly  carried  away 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  its 
property  ;  "  and  you  were  warned  that,  if  you  let  such 
a  man  escape,  you  might  as  well  abandon  at  once  all 
property  in  slaves.  But  it  so  happens,  gentlemen,  that 
you  are  sworn  to  try  this  prisoner  for  stealing  John  and 
Sam,  two  slaves  of  one  Andrew  Hoover,  of  the  alleged 
value  of  fourteen  hundred  dollars  only.  Is  each  of 
these  forty-one  cases  against  the  prisoner  to  be  inflamed 
and  exasperated  by  charging  him  with  plundering  the 
District  to  the  amount  of  more  than  a  hundred  thou 
sand  dollars  ?  A  pretty  strong  effort  of  fancy,  is  it  not  ? 
9 


98 

to  work  up  the  fourteen  hundred  dollars  of  the  indict 
ment  into  more  than  four  millions  in  the  argument ! 
Is  this  to  be  another  of  the  oppressive  consequences 
of  multiplying  the  one  alleged  offence  of  the  prisoner 
into  forty-one  separate  offences?  Is  the  government's 
counsel  to  botch  up  any  sort  of  nefarious  charge 
against  the  prisoner,  and  then  call  upon  you  to  find  him 
guilty  on  these  strained  and  overwrought  exaggera 
tions  of  his  conduct?  No,  gentlemen!  This  would 
be  to  suppose  that  you  sit  there  to  administer  the  worst 
kind  of  Lynch  law,  —  a  kind  that  has  all  its  injustice, 
while  screening  itself  from  the  odium  of  its  violence. 
The  object  of  civil  society  is  to  protect  rights  and  to 
redress  wrongs.  For  these  great  purposes  laws  are  en 
acted,  courts  are  established,  juries  are  instituted,  and 
rules  of  evidence  are  framed.  Without  civil  society, 
each  man  would  have  a  right  to  preserve  his  own 
rights  and  to  redress  his  own  wrongs.  Civil  society 
takes  away  something  from  a  man's  rights,  but  it  adds 
immensely  to  his  powers  ;  it  makes  him  stronger  than 
any  individual  oppressor,  and,  on  the  whole,  it  protects 
its  members  far  better  than  they  could  protect  them 
selves.  But  civil  society,  like  every  thing  human,  is 
imperfect.  Once  out  of  ten  times,  or  once  out.  of 
twenty  times,  it  may  fail  to  accomplish  the  end  for 
which  it  was  established.  The  very  instruments  it 
has  framed  may  sometimes  be  the  cause  of  its  failure. 
What  then  ?  We  do  but  fail  in  each  tenth,  or  each 
twentieth  case,  when,  without  the  social  organization, 
failure  might  have  been  the  general  rule.  And,  there 
fore,  even  if  a  guilty  person  does  sometimes  escape,  all 
we  can  say  is  that  civil  society  has  not  done  its  work 
infallibly.  It  has  done  well,  though  it  has  not  done  all. 
But  suppose  this  very  civil  society,  wielding  as  it  does 
the  combined  and  terrible  strength  of  the  whole  com 
munity,  should  turn  its  collected  force  against  an  inno 
cent  man,  and  crush  him,  then  in  what  an  utter  and 


99 

hopeless  ruin  is  lie  overwhelmed  !  How  much  better 
for  him  had  its  powerful  machinery  never  existed,  than 
that  he  should  be  ground  to  powder  beneath  its  wheels  ! 
Now,  such  might  be  the  case  with  every  prisoner,  if 
juries  were  to  act  without  strict  obedience  to  law,  and 
a  strict  observance  of  the  forms  of  law.  Any  appeals, 
therefore,  made  to  you,  that  because  this  prisoner  may 
have  committed  some  offence  against  law,  you  are, 
therefore,  to  discard  all  scruples  and  find  him  guilty  of 
this  offence,  I  regard  as  treason  against  justice,  as  a 
monstrous  perversion  of  judicial  proceedings ;  yes.  as 
a  thousand  times  worse  than  any  guilt  of  the  prisoner, 
even  supposing  the  distorted  features  of  the  picture, 
drawn  by  the  government's  counsel,  to  be  genuine.  It 
would  be  nothing  less  than  Lynch  law,  perpetrated  by 
twelve  picked  and  sworn  men,  instead  of  a  mob. 

Gentlemen,  the  district  attorney  in  his  opening  has 
not  deigned  to  tell  us  on  what  law  he  proceeds.  He 
has  accused  the  prisoner  of  stealing  often  enough,  but 
has  read  no  statute,  and  referred  to  no  decision, 
which  creates  or  describes  any  such  offence.  Hence  a 
task  which  clearly  belonged  to  him  is  devolved  upon 
me. 

After  the  District  of  Columbia  was  ceded  to  the 
United  States,  Congress  passed  a  general  law,  adopting 
the  laws  of  Maryland,  for  that  part  of  the  District 
which  had  been  ceded  by  Maryland.  This  trial,  there 
fore,  must  proceed  upon  laws  originally  passed  by 
Maryland.  By  the  act  of  1737,  ch.  2,  $  4,  it  is  pro 
vided  that  any  person  "  who  shall  steal  any  negro  or 
other  slave,"  "  or  who  shall  counsel,  hire,  aid,  abet,  or 
command  any  person  or  persons  "  to  do  so,  shall  suffer 
death  as  a  felon.  The  punishment  has  since  been 
changed  to  imprisonment  in  the  United  States  prison, 
for  a  term  of  not  less  than  seven,  nor  more  than 
twenty  years.  [Here  comments  were  made  at  length  on 
the  preamble  of  the  statute,  and  the  class  of  cases  to 
which  the  law  was  intended  to  apply.] 


100 

This  act  was  designed  to  prevent  slaves  from  being 
stolen.  But  a  man  might  lose  a  slave  without  his  being 
stolen.  The  slave  might  he  enticed  or  persuaded  to 
run  away.  Experience,  doubtless,  made  the  masters 
aware  of  this.  Hence,  fourteen  years  afterwards,  by 
the  act  of  1751,  ch.  14,  <§>  10,  it.  was  provided  that  "  if 
any  person  shall  entice  and  persuade  any  slave  within 
this  province  to  run  away,  and  who  shall  actually  run 
away  from  the  master,"  &c.,  he  shall  be  punished,  &c. 

But  there  was  still  another  way  of  depriving  a 
master  of  the  service  of  his  slave.  Hence  the  act  of 
1796,  ch.  67,  <§>  19,  made  it  a  separate  and  distinct  of 
fence  for  any  person  to  be  guilty  of  "  the  transporting 
of  any  slave  or  person,  held,  to  service,"  from  the 
state. 

Now,  here,  gentlemen,  are  four  distinct  legal  provis 
ions,  all  designed  to  protect  slave  property.  By  these 
provisions,  four  distinct  legal  offences  are  created. 
The  law,  by  creating  and  defining  these  offences,  has 
authoritatively  declared  that  one  of  them  is  not  either 
of  the  others  of  them.  "  Stealing  "  is  one  thing. 
"  Counselling,  hiring,"  &c.,  a  man  to  steal,  is  not 
stealing  itself.  "  Enticing  and  persuading  "  a  slave  to 
run  away  from  his  master  is  not  stealing.  "  Trans 
porting  "  a  slave  out  of  the  jurisdiction  is  not  stealing. 
The  inquiry  for  you,  therefore,  is  whether  the  prisoner 
is  guilty  of  any  of  these  offences,  and  if  of  any,  then, 
of  which. 

Now,  gentlemen,  let  me  take  advantage  of  a  map 
which  is  lying  here  accidentally  before  me,  to  illustrate 
this  case.  Four  states,  —  Pennsylvania,  Maryland, 
Virginia,  and  North  Carolina,  are  here  represented.  The 
boundaries  between  them  are  distinctly  marked.  Penn 
sylvania  is  not  Maryland,  nor  either  of  the  others. 
Maryland  is  not  Virginia,  nor  either  of  the  others;  and 
so  of  the  rest.  Just  so  it  is  with  the  offences  created 
by  these  statutes.  Any  one  of  them  is  not  either  of 


101 

the  others.  It  is  as  plain  that  the  offence  of  "  trans 
porting  "  a  slave  out  of  the  jurisdiction  is  as  different 
from  the  offence  of  stealing  a  slave,  as  this  geographical 
shape  of  Maryland  is  different  from  this  geographical 
shape  of  Pennsylvania.  As,  therefore,  if  the  geo 
graphical  metes  and  bounds  of  the  State  of  Maryland 
were  shown  to  yon,  you  could  not  say,  upon  your 
oaths,  that  it  was  a  description  of  the  State  of  Pennsyl 
vania  ;  so,  if  the  offence  of  "  transporting  "  be  proved 
to  you,  you  cannot  say,  on  your  oaths,  that  it  is  the 
offence  of  stealing. 

Or  take  an  illustration  from  other  things.  The  ob 
ject  of  a  sun-dial,  a  watch,  a  clock,  and  a  chronom 
eter  is  the  same.  All  are  made  for  the  measurement  of 
time,  as  all  these  laws  were  made  for  the  protection  of 
slave  property.  But  could  you,  therefore,  on  your 
oaths,  convict  a  man  of  stealing  a  chronometer,  when 
he  had  only  taken  a  clock  or  a  watch  ?  No,  you  could 
find  him  guilty  only  of  the  thing  proved  to  have  been 
done. 

Or,  again,  suppose  a  law  should  be  made  to  protect  a 
man's  property  in  his  books  ;  and  the  stealing  of  books, 
generally,  should  be  punishable  by  five  years'  confine 
ment  in  the  penitentiary.  Such  a  general  law  would 
include  all  books.  Suppose  a  subsequent  law  should 
inflict  a  lighter  penalty  for  stealing  an  octavo  volume, 
and  a  still  lighter  one  for  a  duodecimo.  Then  it  would 
be  necessary,  in  an  indictment,  to  set  out  the  kind  of 
book  stolen,  and  no  man  could  be  lawfully  punished 
for  the  weightier  offence  who  had  only  committed  the 
lighter.  So  here,  the  first  law  punished  "  stealing," 
the  next  "enticing,"  and  the  next  "  transporting." 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  maintain  that,  at  most,  nothing 
but  the  offence  of  "  transporting  "  has  been  proved 
against  this  prisoner.  But  he  is  arraigned  for  stealing. 
What  then,  let  us  inquire,  are  the  ingredients  which 
constitute  the  offence  of  stealing,  —  which  are  indis- 
9* 


102 

pensable  to  its  perpetration  ?  They  are,  1.  That  the 
property  shall  be  taken  by  the  thief  from  the  possession 
of  the  owner.  2.  That  it  shall  be  taken  into  the 
possession  of  the  thief,  —  that  is,  that  the  taker  shall 
exercise  some  act  of  control  or  ownership  over  it. 
And,  3.  That  this  taking  by  the  thief,  from  the  posses 
sion  of  the  owner,  and  into  his  own  possession,  shall  be 
for  the  felonious  purpose  of  converting  the  said  prop 
erty  to  his  own  use. 

Now,  I  think  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  that  neither 
one  of  these  three  indispensable  ingredients  of  larceny 
has  been  proved  in  this  case. 

1.  It  is  not  proved  that  the  prisoner  took  the  two 
slaves  mentioned  in  the  indictment /row  the  possession 
of  Andrew  Hoover.  Could  not  some  other  person  be 
sides  the  prisoner  have  put  it  into  the  heads  of  these 
slaves  to  leave  their  master  ?  There  are  white  men  in 
this  city  hostile  to  the  institution  of  slavery,  and  de 
siring  the  freedom  of  all  slaves.  Could  they  not  have 
said  to  Hoover's  slaves,  "  Here  is  a  schooner  at  the 
wharf ;  it  is  to  sail  at  such  a  time  ;  be  there,  and  you 
may  escape  to  a  free  state"?  Here,  too,  are  thousands 
of  free  negroes,  or  celored  persons,  in  this  District, 
with  whom  the  slaves  are  in  daily  and  open  communica 
tion.  Could  they  not  have  infused  into  the  mind  of 
these  slaves  the  idea  of  liberty  ?  Is  it  not  a  thousand 
times  more  probable  that  it  was  done  by  some  citizen 
in  the  District,  or  by  some  colored  acquaintance  or 
friend  of  theirs,  enjoying  the  means  of  constant  com 
munication  with  them,  than  that  it  was  done  by  an 
entire  stranger  to  them,  as  the  prisoner  was  ?  Can 
aught  be  conceived  more  absurd  or  preposterous  than 
that  the  prisoner  should  go  round  the  streets  of  Wash 
ington,  picking  up  a  slave  here  and  there,  to  complete 
his  cargo,  as  the  driver  of  a  stage-coach  goes  round 
picking  up  passengers  ?  Should  he  accost  a  colored 
man  in  the  streets,  and  ask  him  if  he  were  a  slave,  the 


103 

chances  are  three  to  one  that  the  person  addressed 
would  turn  out  to  be  a  freeman  ;  for  1  >s<j  the 

proportion,  in  this  District,  of  the  free  <;of  rrsons 

to  the  slaves  to  be  as  great  as  thr  it"  the  fourth 
man  or  woman  he  might  meet  shoi  '  ;  ;ove  to  be  a 
slave,  how  could  he  know  but  what  lie  might  be  ad 
dressing  one  so  attached  to  the  place,  to  his  home  and 
relatives,  and  to  his  master,  that  even  the  sweets  of 
freedom  would  not  tempt  him  to  leave  ;  and  that  the 
consequence  would  be  an  immediate  reporting  of  the 
interview,  and  sudden  detection  and  punishment  ?  But 
a  person  on  the  spot  would  know  who  were  slaves, 
and  what  slaves  were  discontented  with  their  condition  ; 
he  could  select  the  occasion  when  a  slave  had  been 
punished  by  his  master,  when  his  body  was  smarting, 
and  his  mind  was  fired  with  indignation  against  him, 
and  then  sow  the  seeds  of  discontent  and  the  hopes 
of  escape  in  a  fruitful  soil.  If,  then,  the  slaves  were, 
in  fact,  instigated  to  leave  their  master's  possession, 
the  probabilities  are  a  thousand  to  one  that  they  were 
so  instigated  by  some  other  person  or  persons  resident 
here,  and  not  by  the  prisoner.  If  this  were  so,  and 
they  came  on  board  the  prisoner's  schooner,  after  having 
absconded  from  their  master,  then  he  did  not  take  them 
from  Hoover's  possession,  and  so  is  not  guilty  of  the  first 
ingredient  in  the  crime  of  larceny. 

But  is  there  not  still  another  way  in  which  slaves 
may  be  induced  to  leave  the  possession  of  their  mas 
ter  ?  Though  we  may  call  men  slaves,  yet  are  they 
not  human  beings  ?  —  degraded  from  the  natural  dignity 
of  manhood,  it  is  true,  and  dwarfed  in  their  mental 
stature,  but  still  human  beings ;  subject  to  the  passions 
of  our  common  nature,  animated  by  its  hopes,  inflamed 
by  its  resentments,  and  shrinking  and  flying  through 
fear  from  the  uplifted  rod.  As  human  beings,  could 
not  the  desire  of  escape  from  their  master's  possession 
have  originated  with  themselves  ?  —  prompted  by  the 


104 

inward  and  instinctive  longings  for  liberty,  which 
spring  perennial  in  the  human  breast. 
.  The  attorney  for  the  government,  in  his  opening, 
dwelt  long  and  earnestly  on  the  value  of  this  species 
of  property.  He  described  it  as  the  most  valuable 
kind  of  property  known  in  the  District,  and  therefore 
most  vigilantly  to  be  guarded.  Doubtless  it  has  a 
certain  pecuniary  value  ;  and,  as  it  increases  in  intelli 
gence,  activity,  and  skill,  its  value  is  greatly  enhanced. 
Bat  with  this  enhanced  value  comes  a  per  contra. 
With  increased  intelligence  and  mental  development, 
the  desires  natural  to  manhood  spring  up;  —  the  long 
ing  for  liberty,  and  for  the  possession  of  free  agency  ; 
the  desire  of  selecting  one's  own  field  of  labor,  and 
means  of  enjoyment ;  the  desire  of  commanding  the 
rewards  of  one's  own  toil.  So  that,  as  the  value  of  a 
slave  increases,  the  strength  of  the  tenure  by  which  he 
is  held  l>ecoines  less  secure.  It  is  a  weight  of  gold 
suspended  by  a  cord.  The  master  wishes  to  increase 
the  mass.  He  adds  little  by  little,  until  the  weight 
snaps  the  cord,  and  he  loses  the  whole. 

Hoover  says  he  had  been  offered  $1400  for  the 
two  slaves  mentioned  in  the  indictment,  and  had  refused 
the  offer.  Their  services  were  probably  worth  to  him 
a  dollar  a  day  each.  One  of  them  was  employed  in 
driving  a  cart  about  the  city.  As  he  saw  a  handful 
of  money  paid  to  his  master  every  week,  or  every 
month,  for  his  own  earnings,  think  you  he  never  asked 
himself,  why  that  money  could  not  be  his  ?  When 
three  oat  of  every  four  colored  men  whom  he  met, 
from  day  to  day,  were  receiving  their  own  earnings, 
and  making  those  earnings  minister  to  their  comforts 
and  their  pleasures,  might  not  Hoover's  slaves  have 
said,  "  Why  are  not  our  earnings  our  own  ?  and,  if  we 
cannot  possess  them  here,  why  should  we  riot  go  to  a 
country  where  the  laborer  is  deemed,  in  the  language 
of  Scripture,  to  be  worthy  of  his  hire  ?  "  and  so  have 


lor. 

lied  of  their  own  accord  ?  for.  though  we  are  prone  to 
apply  the  precepts  of  the  gospel  to  others  rather  than. 
to  ourselves,  yet  this  is  a  passage  which  they  would  be 
likely  to  take  home. 

But  this  is  not  all,  gentlemen.  In  this  capital  of  a 
nation  so  boastful  of  its  freedom,  the  common  air  is 
vocal  with  the  accents  of  liberty.  Many  of  the  colored 
people  can  read.  Who  knows  but  some  of  them  have 
read  the  Declaration  of  American  Independence  :  and, 
in  their  blindness  and  simplicity  of  mind,  applied  its 
immortal  truths  to  themselves  ?  "  All  men  are  created 
equal  !  "  and  among  their  "inalienable  rights"  "  are 
life.  LIBERTY,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  !"  Who 
knows  but  that  they  may  have  seen  these  doctrines, 
with  a  constellation  of  names  subscribed  to  them 
as  glorious  as  any  that  ever  shone  in  history's  firma 
ment  ?  If  such  ideas  once  got  possession  of  a  man's 
mind,  do  you  think  that  fire  or  water  could  ever  burn 
them  or  drown  them  out  ?  Those  who  cannot  read, 
can  hear ;  and  if  you  are  to  keep  from  them  the  per 
petually  recurring  sights  and  sounds  which  must 
awaken  the  quick  instincts  of  liberty,  you  must  extin 
guish  their  eyes,  and  seal  up  their  ears  in  everlasting 
silence.  The  last  spring  was  one  of  peculiar  "refresh 
ing  "  to  the  ardent  lovers  of  liberty.  The  recent  events 
of  Europe  were  the  theme  of  every  tongue.  Not 
only  in  the  market-place,  in  the  street,  and  in  after- 
dinner  conversations,  was  the  emancipation  of  Europe 
the  subject  of  discussion,  but  stormy  eloquence  rushed 
forth  from  the  capital  of  the  nation,  like  winds  from 
the  cave  of  jEolus,  and  roared  and  raved  till  all  but 
the  dead  must  have  heard  it.  Nay,  more,  gentlemen, 
one  of  the  witnesses  identified  the  day  when  the  de 
fendant's  schooner,  the  Pearl,  came  to  anchor  in  the 
waters  of  this  city,  because  he  remembered  it  as  the 
day  of  the  "  torchlight  procession."  And  what  was 
the  "  torchlight  procession  "  ?  You  all  know  ;  — 


106 

drums  beating,  music  playing,  bonfires  blazing,  the 
house  of  the  President  and  of  high  official  dignitaries 
illuminated,  the  trees  of  the  avenue  fancifully  lighted 
up  with  many-colored  lanterns  ;  men,  women,  chil 
dren,  and  slaves,  all  out,  and  all  agog  to  see  and  to  hear 
of  the  wonderful  things  which  "  liberty  "  had  done, 
or  had  not  done,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
There,  too,  moved  in  long  procession  men  who  were 
elected  for  the  occasion,  from  among  the  nation's  elect, 
—  heads  of  departments,  senators,  and  representa 
tives,  —  men  distended  almost  to  bursting  with  elo 
quence  for  regenerated  Europe,  who  must  speak  or  die  ! 
They  marched  to  an  open  space  on  Pennsylvania  Av 
enue,  where,  on  an  extempore  rostrum,  they  eased 
themselves  of  their  repletion  of  patriotism  ;  while  peo 
ple  of  all  kinds,  conditions,  and  colors  stood  below, 
empty  and  agape,  to  receive  what  the  upper  divinities 
might  send  down.  And  now  let  me  read  to  you,  gen 
tlemen  of  the  jury,  some  of  the  precious  things  that 
were  said  on  that  memorable  evening,  —  only  two 
nights  before  the  escape  of  the  slaves  in  the  schooner 
Pearl,  —  and  see,  after  you  have  tasted  of  the  yeast, 
if  you  can  wonder  at  the  fermentation  :  — 

" Events  which  hold  out  to  the  wlwlc,  family  of  man 

so  bright  a  promise  of  the  universal  establishment  of  CIVIL 
and  religious  liberty,  and  the  general  destruction  of  monarchi 
cal  power  throughout  the  world." 

"New  and  endearing  ties  "  —  "  between  the  people  of  lib 
erated  France,  and  the  twenty  millions  of  freemen  who  dwell, 
in  all  the  plenitude  of  social  and  political  happiness,  between 
the  great  seas  which  water  the  eastern  and  western  shores  of 
this  vast  continent." 

l'  I  feel  authorized  to  declare  that  there  is  not  one  in  this 
vast  multitude  whose  sympathies  are  not  deeply  enkindled  in 
behalf  of  France  and  Frenchmen." 

" Such  has  been  the  extraordinary  course  of  events  in 

France,  and  in  Europe,  within  the  last  two  months,  that  the 
more  deliberately  we  survey  the  scene  which  has  been  spread 


ior 

out  before  us,  and  the  more  rigidly  we  scrutinize  the  conduct 
of  its  actors,  the  more  confident  does  our  conviction  become 
that  the  glorious  work  which  has  been  so  well  begun  cannot 
possibly  fail  of  complete  accomplishment ;  that  the  age  of 
TYRANTS  AND  SLAVERY  is  rapidly  drawing  to  a  close  ;  and  that 
the  happy  period  to  be  signalized  by  the  universal  emancipa 
tion  of  man  from  the  fetters  of  civil  oppression,  and  the  recog 
nition  in  all  countries  of  the  great  principles  of  popular  sover 
eignty,  equality,  and  BROTHERHOOD,  is,  at  this  moment,  visibly 
commencing." 

[Here  Judge  CRAWPORD  broke  in,  witli  great  sharpness,  and  said, 
"  Mr.  MANN,  such  inflammatory  language  cannot  be  allowed  in  this 
court.  We  have  institutions  that  may  be  endangered  by  it.  The 
court  thinks  it  its  duty  to  interfere.  The  counsel  cannot  be  allowed 
to  proceed  with  such  inflammatory  language." 

Mr.  CARLISLE  here  rose,  and,  for  the  space  of  ten  or  fifteen  minutes, 
with  the  crowded  audience  hushed  to  a  grave-like  silence,  he  inter 
spersed  resistless  logic  with  noble  sentiments,  in  a  strain  of  eloquence 
rarely,  if  ever,  surpassed.  He  vindicated  every  word  his  colleague 
had  said,  both  as  to  matter  and  manner,  and  obtested  Heaven  to  pre 
serve  American  tribunals  of  justice  from  following  the  examples  of 
the  worst  times  of  English  judicial  tyranny,  when  the  basest  minions 
of  the  crown  were  elevated  to  the  bench,  that  they  might  overawe 
and  abash  counsel  in  their  defence  of  prisoners  whom  the  king  had 
foredoomed  to  punishment. 

Judgg  CRAWFORD.  (Trembling  with  emotion.)  Mr.  MANN'S  course 
of  argument  was  perfectly  legitimate.  It  was  the  inflammatory  lan 
guage  that  I  objected  to.  It  was  the  language,  and  not  the  argument, 
that  was  objectionable.] 

Mr.  MANN.  Gentlemen  of  the  jury,  as  the  interdict 
against  the  line  of  argument  I  was  pursuing,  —  now 
acknowledged  to  be  just  and  proper,  —  has  been  with 
drawn,  I  take  it  up  where  I  left  it,  and  proceed. 

Mr.  KEY,  district  attorney.  I  demand  to  know 
from  what  paper  the  gentleman  reads. 

Mr.  MANN.  (Holding  up  the  paper  and  pointing  to 
its  heading.)  From  Mr.  Ritchie's  Washington  Union, 
of  April  20th.  Isn't  that  good  authority  on  this 
subject  ? 

Mr.  KEY.  From  whose  speech  does  the  gentleman 
read? 

Mr.  MANN.     From  the  speech  of  the  Hon.  Henry 


108 

S.  Foote,  a  senator  in  Congress  from  the  State  of 
Mississippi. 

Mr.  KEY.  The  gentleman  cannot  read  a  paper  to 
the  jury,  unless  he  expects  to  prove  it. 

Mr.  MANN.  I  deny  that  as  a  principle  ;  but,  if  re 
quired,  will  call  Mr.  Foote  to  swear  to  his  speech. 

Judge  CRAWFORD.  Mr.  Mann  knows  Mr.  Foote  did 
not  mean  his  language  for  our  slaves.  (A  suppressed 
laugh  around  the  bar.) 

Mr.  MANN.  May  it  please  your  honor,  while  noth 
ing,  on  the  one  hand,  will  ever  deter  me  from  doing 
my  duty  to  a  client,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  I  am 
moved  to  say  that  I  have  been  trained  from  my  youth 
to  such  respect  for  a  court  of  justice,  that  I  would  say 
nothing  to  it  or  before  it  which  should  not  be  fitting 
and  appropriate,  as  apples  of  gold  in  pictures  of  silver. 
Let  me  then  restate  my  argument,  that  we  may  see 
whether,  and  by  whom,  this  rule  has  been  departed 
from.  I  reiterate,  then,  if  slaves  are  property,  they  are 
a  peculiar  kind  of  property.  They  are  instinct  with 
the  common  desires  of  humanity,  and  among  them  one 
of  the  deepest  and  strongest  is  the  love  of  fiberty. 
And  just  in  proportion  as  their  value  is  increased  by 
intelligence  and  development,  just  in  that  proportion 
is  the  bond  weakened  by  which  they  are  held.  In  all 
places  slaves  hear  something,  but  in  this  place  they 
hear  much,  of  what  is  said  in  behalf  of  human  liberty 
and  of  human  rights.  If  they  hear  this,  and  are  above 
the  condition  of  brutes,  they  will  apply  it  to  them 
selves.  Every  Fourth  of  July  oration,  if  understood, 
is  a  torch  to  light  up  another  St.  Domingo.  If 
they  hear  the  word  "  slave"  used  in  reference  to  those 
Avho  have  been  deprived  of  their  natural  rights  in  other 
countries,  they  will  apply  that  word  to  their  own  con 
dition  in  this.  If  they  hear  the  word  "  tyrants"  used  in 
reference  to  one  who  deprives  others  of  their  rights, 
for  "tyrants"  they  will  read  "masters;"  and  no 


109 

mortal  power,  or  law,  or  art,  can  help  it,  but  by  blotting 
out  all  that  is  human  within  them.  The  slaves  in  this 
city  are  constantly  hearing  what  must  remind  them 
that  they  are  slaves:  and  therefore  they  are  constantly 
incited  to  escape  from  their  bondage.  The  torchlight 
procession,  with  its  speeches  and  parade,  was  one  among 
ten  thousand  of  these  incitements.  The  slaves,  there 
fore,  who  went  on  board  the  Pearl,  might  have  ob 
tained  the  idea  of  escape  from  some  other  person  than 
from  the  prisoner,  — from  some  orator  who  lays  down 
rules  for  the  meridian  of  Europe,  which  do  not  quite 
suit  the  meridian  of  America.  Hence  they  might 
have  gone  and  applied  to  the  prisoner  for  a  passage. 
To  this  he  might  have  assented.  And  if  so,  then  his 
offence  can  be  nothing  beyond  the  offence  of  "  trans 
porting,"  and  is  not  the  offence  of  stealing,  as  charged 
in  this  indictment. 

And,  as  to  the  inflammatory  language  which  the 
court  charges  me  with  having  used  :  every  word 
which  was  uttered  by  me,  and  which  the  court  char 
acterizes  and  denounces  as  "  inflammatory,"  and  thinks 
not  proper  to  be  spoken  in  this  court  room,  because  it 
may  endanger  the  institutions  of  this  city,  was  the 
exact  language  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Foote,  senator  in  Con 
gress  from  the  State  of  Mississippi,  uttered  by  him 
from  the  rostrum,  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  the  most 
public  place  in  this  city,  on  the  evening  of  the  13th 
of  April  last,  to  thousands  of  people  there  assembled, 
men,  women,  children,  negroes  and  all. 

I  had  marked,  may  it  please  the  court,  several  other 
passages,  —  for  this  purpose  most  pungent  and  piercing, 
—  in  the  speeches  of  that  evening,  to  be  read  on  this 
occasion  ;  but  as  I  think  both  court  and  jury  are  al 
ready  pretty  well  apprised  of  the  pertinency  and  force 
of  my  argument  under  this  head,  I  shall  content 
myself  with  reading  one  passage  more.  It  is  from 
the  speech  of  the  Hon.  Frederick  P.  Staunton,  repre- 
10 


110 

sentative  in  Congress  from  Tennessee,  delivered  on  the 
same  occasion,  and  printed  in  the  same  paper  :  — 

"  It  has  been  truly  said  here  this  evening,  that  our  example 
has  been  of  essential  service  to  France.  Who  can  doubt  it  ? 
How  different  would  have  been  the  struggle  for  liberty  to  be 
secured  by  republicanism,  if  there  had  been  no  example  of 
a  stable  republican  government  to  which  the  patriot  could 
point,  for  the  encouragement  of  his  people!  It  is  said  we 
are  propagandists.  We  do  not,  indeed,  propagate  our  princi 
ples  with  the  sword  of  power  ;  but  there  is  one  sense  in  which 
we  are  propagandists.  We  cannot  help  being  so.  Our  ex 
ample  is  contagious.  In  the  section  of  this  great  country 
where  I  live,  on  the  banks  of  the  mighty  Mississippi  river, 
we  have  the  true  emblem  of  the  tree  of  liberty.  There  you 
may  see  the  giant  cottonwood  spreading  his  branches  widely 
to  the  winds  of  heaven.  Sometimes  the  current  lays  bare  his 
roots,  and  you  behold  them  extending  far  around  and  pene 
trating  to  an  immense  depth  in  the  soil.  When  the  season 
of  maturity  comes,  the  air  is  filled  with  a  cotton-like  sub 
stance,  which  floats  in  every  direction,  bearing,  on  its  light 
wings,  the  living  seeds  of  the  mighty  tree.  They  lodge  upon 
every  bank  of  sand  which  emerges  from  the  bosom  of  the 
receding  tide,  and  soon  a  young  forest  is  seen  to  lift  its  head 
from  the  surface  of  the  barren  waste.  Thus  the  seeds  of 
freedom  have  emanated  from  the  tree  of  our  liberties.  They 
fill  the  air.  They  are  wafted  to  every  part  of  the  habitable 
globe.  And  even  in  the  barren  sands  of  tyranny  they  are 
destined  to  take  root.  The  tree  of  liberty  will  spring  up 
every  where,  and  nations  shall  recline  in  its  shade." 

And  thus,  gentlemen  of  the  jury,  I  say  that  while 
some  of  the  seeds  of  liberty  which  we  scatter  are 
wafted  to  a  foreign  realm,  and  fall  upon  a  foreign  soil, 
others  will  drop  upon  the  hearts  of  bondmen  and 
bondwomen  at  home,  and  will  there  fructify  arid  ma 
ture  into  their  appropriate  harvest. 

Such,  gentlemen,  are  the  considerations  that  lead 
me  to  believe  that  the  slaves  found  on  board  the 
schooner  Pearl  left  the  possession  of  their  masters  of 
their  own  accord,  or  at  the  private  suggestion  of  some 


Ill 

friend,  and  not  at  that  ot  the  prisoner ;  or  because  they 
were  publicly  incited  thereto  by  that  boastful  spirit 
amongst  us  which  is  forever  shouting  the  praises  of 
liberty,  while  restricting  the  application  of  its  princi 
ples.  I  therefore  infer  that  the  prisoner  has  not  com 
mitted  the  act  which  forms  the  first  ingredient  in  the 
offence  of  larceny,  —  the  taking  of  property  from  the 
possession  of  the  owner. 

2.  To  constitute  the  offence  of  larceny,  the  prisoner 
must  have  taken  the  slaves  into  his  own  possession. 
Now,  of  this  there  is  not  a  particle  of  evidence.     For 
aught  that  appears,  the  slaves  might  have  been  passen 
gers,  on  board  his  schooner,  for  a  fare.     They  them 
selves  might  have  paid  this  fare,  or  others  might  have 
paid  it  for  them.     In  either  case,  they  were  no  more 
in  possession  of  the  prisoner  than  you  or  I  are  in  pos 
session  of  a  railroad  corporation,  when  we  travel  in  its 
cars. 

3.  The  third  question  is,  whether,  even  if  the  pris 
oner  did  take  the  slaves  named  in  this  indictment  from 
the  possession  of  Andrew   Hoover,  and  into  his  own 
possession,  he  did  so  for  the  felonious  purpose  of  con 
verting  them  to  his  own  use. 

The  act  of  stealing,  gentlemen,  springs  from  the  im 
pulse  to  acquire  property,  as  a  means  of  gratification. 
This  impulse  or  desire  to  obtain  the  means  of  enjoy 
ment  is  universal.  The  law  denounces  its  penalties 
against  stealing,  in  order  to  repress  the  excesses  of  this 
propensity,  and  to  confine  it  to  honest  acquisitions. 
Hence  one  man  may  interfere  with  the  property  of 
another  in  a  thousand  ways,  without  being  guilty  of 
stealing.  It  is  not  the  mere  taking  of  another  man's 
property,  therefore,  which  constitutes  stealing,  but  the 
taking  of  it  in  order  to  convert  it  to  the  use  of  the  taker, 
and  so  to  save  himself  the  labor  of  earning  it.  Hence 
I  may  take  a  man's  plough  from  his  field,  or  his  wagon 
from  his  barn,  and  use  them  temporarily  ;  but  if  I 


112 

return  them  again  to  the  owner,  it  is  not  stealing,  but 
only  a  trespass.  So,  according  to  the  books,  I  may 
take  a  man's  horse  from  his  stable,  ride  him  thirty 
miles,  in  order  to  flee  from  justice,  and  then,  if  I  aban 
don  the  horse,  it  is  not  stealing.  It  is  only  a  trespass. 

The  doctrine,  gentlemen,  which  I  wish  to  enforce 
upon  your  minds,  is,  that  every  act  of  taking  another 
man's  property  is  not  stealing.  When  a  wag,  riding 
with  a  clergyman  to  church,  took  his  sermon  from  his 
pocket,  for  the  purpose  of  enjoying  his  embarrassment 
when  he  should  get  into  the  pulpit,  and  find  himself 
in  the  presence  of  the  enemy  without  any  ammunition, 
such  taking  was  not  stealing  j  for  doubtless  the  rogue 
had  no  intention  of  appropriating  either  the  sermon  or 
its  morals  to  his  own  use. 

So  it  is  related  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  that,  when  he 
was  a  boy  at  school,  he  got  within  one  of  the  head  of 
his  class.  But  the  boy  at  the  head  never  made  a  mis 
take,  and  so  he  stood  there,  as  perseveringly  as  the 
letter  A  stands  at  the  head  of  the  alphabet.  But  Sir 
Walter  observed  that,  when  his  classmate  was  reciting, 
his  fingers  always  fumbled  with  a  button  on  his  jacket, 
and,  watching  his  opportunity  at  their  next  romping 
on  the  playground,  he  cut  off  the  button  from  his 
rival's  jacket ;  and,  at  the  very  next  lesson,  the  boy. 
being  disconcerted  at  not  finding  the  button,  missed 
his  answer,  and  Sir  Walter  rose  to  the  head.  But 
surely  this  was  not  stealing. 

The  reason  why,  in  each  of  these  cases,  one  would 
not  be  guilty  of  stealing,  is,  that  he  does  not  mean  to 
make  the  article  taken  his  own.  He  gets  a  temporary 
advantage  from  it,  but  does  no  act  that  proves  a  design 
of  permanent  or  unlimited  ownership.  Hence  there 
is  the  broadest  and  most  striking  difference  between 
stealing  and  malicious  mischief.  If  one  man  takes  the 
property  of  another,  merely  to  destroy  or  annihilate  it, 
out  of  ill  will  or  revenge  towards  the  owner,  this  is 


113 

malicious  mischief  only,  and  not  stealing.  It  is  not 
punished  as  stealing.  Morally,  it  may  be  as  wrong,  — 
perhaps  worse  than  stealing  itself.  But  this  impulse 
which  prompts  to  the  destruction  of  another  man's 
property  is  vastly  weaker  than  that  which  leads  to  its 
appropriation.  The  latter  is  gratified  a  thousand  times 
where  the  former  is  once,  and  therefore  the  law  visits 
the  former  with  the  milder  penalty.  If  taking  property 
from  its  owner  from  revenge,  and  for  the  malicious  pur 
pose  of  destroying  it,  be  not  stealing,  but  only  malicious 
mischief,  then  surely  taking  the  property  for  the  be 
nevolent  purpose  of  doing  a  kindness  to  the  property 
itself, — as  to  a  slave,  —  is  not  stealing. 

Take  an  illustration.  Wild  animals  are  the  property 
of  no  one.  The  undomesticated  hares  that  run  over 
my  fields,  the  pigeons  that  fly  over  my  house,  or  the 
fishes  that  swim  in  my  streams,  are  not  rny  property  so 
that  they  can  be  the  subjects  of  larceny.  If  a  man 
takes  them,  he  is  liable  in  trespass  for  entering  my 
grounds,  and  that  is  all.  But  if  I  confine  hares  in  a 
warren,  or  pigeons  in  a  cote,  or  fishes  in  a  seine,  then 
they  are  my  property,  and  are  the  subjects  of  larceny, 
because  I  have  reduced  them  to  possession.  Under 
such  circumstances,  if  a  man  shoots  or  catches  them 
for  his  table,  —  that  is,  to  convert  them  to  his  own 
use,  —  he  steals  them;  but  if  a  man  merely  releases 
them  from  their  confinement,  breaks  open  their  en 
closures  to  let  them  go  free,  he  is  at  most  only  guilty 
of  malicious  mischief.  The  English  nobility  send  to 
France  for  foxes.  These  are  caught  in  the  Pyrenees 
or  other  mountains,  brought  across  the  English  chan 
nel,  and  placed  in  the  parks  of  noblemen  preparatory 
to  the  barbarous  amusement  of  a  fox-hunt.  Now,  if 
one  lord  should  take  a  fox  from  the  park  of  another 
lord,  for  the  pleasure  of  hunting  him  down,  on  his  own 
premises,  this  would  be  stealing  ;  but  if  he  should  only 
assist  a  fox  to  escape  out  of  the  park,  for  the  benevolent 
10* 


114 

purpose  of  restoring  him  to  his  natural  liberty,  this 
would  not  be  stealing,  but  only  a  trespass.  In  such  a 
case,  the  man  who  enlarges  the  fox  does  not  do  it  in 
order  to  save  himself  the  labor  or  expense  of  catching 
a  fox ;  that  is,  he  does  not  convert  the  fox  to  his  own 
use. 

Let  me  give  you  another  illustration,  which  I  select 
for  the  beauty  of  the  language  in  which  it  is  conveyed, 
arid  for  the  nobleness  of  the  sentiments  that  accompany 
it.  In  the  "  Sentimental  Journey  "  of  Sterne,  the  fol 
lowing  incident  is  related  :  — 

"  I  was  interrupted,  in"  the  heyday  of  this  soliloquy,  with  a 
voice  which  I  took  to  be  of  a  child,  which  complained,  it 
could  not  get  out.  I  looked  up  and  down  the  passage,  and 
seeing  neither  man,  woman,  nor  child,  I  went  out  without 
further  attention. 

"  In  my  return  back  through  the  passage,  I  heard  the  same 
words  repeated  twice  over,  and  looking  up,  I  saw  it  was  a 
starling,  hung  in  a  little  cage.  '  I  can't  get  out,  I  can't  get  out,' 
said  the  starling. 

"  I  stood  looking  at  the  bird,  and  to  every  person  who  came 
through  the  passage,  it  ran  fluttering  to  the  side  which  they 
approached,  with  the  same  lamentation  of  its  captivity,  — '  I 
can't  get  out,'  said  the  starling.  God  help  thee  !  said  I,  but 
I'll  let  thee  out,  cost  what  it  will ;  so  I  turned  about  the  cage 
to  get  at  the  door.  It  was  twisted  and  double  twisted  so  fast 
with  wire,  there  was  no  getting  it  open  without  pulling  the 
cage  to  pieces.  I  took  both  hands  to  it. 

"  The  bird  flew  to  the  place  where  I  was  attempting  his  de 
liverance,  and,  thrusting  his  head  through  the  trellis,  pressed 
his  breast  against  it  as  if  impatient.  I  fear,  poor  creature, 
said  I,  I  cannot  set  thee  at  liberty.  '  No,'  said  the  starling, 
*  I  can't  get  out.  I  can't  get  out,'  said  the  starling. 

"  I  vow  I  never  had  my  affections  more  tenderly  awakened." 

And  then  he  bursts  out  into  that  apostrophe  to 
Slavery,  which  has  thrilled  the  hearts  of  all  his  readers 
in  times  past,  and  will  continue  to  thrill  the  heart  of 
every  reader  in  all  time  to  come  :  — 


115 

"  Disguise  thyself  as  thou  wilt,  still,  Slavery,  still  thou  art  a 
bitter  draught !  and,  though  thousands  in  all  ages  have  heen 
made  to  drink  of  thee,  thou  art  no  less  bitter  on  that  account. 
'Tis  thou,  thrice  sweet  and  gracious  goddess,  LIBERTY,  whom 
all  in  public  or  in  private  worship,  whose  taste  is  grateful,  and 
ever  will  be  so  till  Nature  herself  shall  change.  No  tint  of 
words  can  spot  thy  snowy  mantle,  or  chemic  power  turn  thy 
sceptre  into  iron.  With  thee  to  smile  upon  him  as  he  eats  his 
crust,  the  swain  is  happier  than  his  monarch,  from  whose  court 
thou  art  exiled.  Gracious  Heaven  !  grant  me  but  health, 
thou  great  Bestower  of  it,  and  give  me  but  this  fair  goddess  as 
rny  companion,  and  shower  down  thy  mitres,  if  it  seems  good 
unto  thy  divine  providence,  upon  those  heads  which  are 
aching  for  them." 

Had  Sterne  released  that  bird,  and  sent  it  abroad  to 
rejoice  in  its  native  fields  of  air,  would  his  myriads  of 
readers,  who  have  been  delighted  at  the  story,  have 
convicted  him  of  stealing  ? 

Now  for  the  application.  These  slaves,  by  the  law 
of  nature,  were  as  free  as  you  or  I.  By  the  law  and 
force  of  man,  they  have  been  subjected  to  bondage. 
If  the  prisoner  took  them,  and  took  them  either  to  sell 
them  or  to  use  them  himself,  then  he  took  them,  in  the 
language  of  the  law,  for  the  felonious  purpose  of  con 
verting  them  to  his  own  use  ;  and  such  taking  would 
be  larceny  according  to  the  law.  But  if  he  took  them 
for  the  purpose  of  carrying  them  to  a  free  state,  and  of 
thus  restoring  them  to  their  natural  liberty,  then  he  did 
not  intend  to  convert  them  to  his  own  use,  and  is  not 
guilty  of  stealing. 

There  is  another  view  of  this  case.  The  harshest 
doctrines  in  favor  of  slavery  only  claim,  that  a  master 
has  a  right  to  the  services  of  his  slave.  He  has  not  a 
right  to  his  flesh  and  bones,  so  that  he  can  cut  up  the 
former  for  dog's  meat,  and  grind  the  latter  for  compost. 
To  constitute  larceny,  then,  of  this  kind  of  property,  the 
prisoner  must  have  deprived  the  master  of  the  services 
of  his  slaves,  with  the  intent,  with  the  felonious  intent, 


116 

to  use  those  services  himself,  of  to  sell  them  to  another, 
which  would  be  the  most  effective  act  of  use.  But  no 
evidence  of  any  such  intent  has  been  adduced  in  this 
case.  I  therefore  maintain,  that  neither  of  the  three 
ingredients  necessary  to  constitute  the  offence  of  larceny 
has  been  proved  by  the  government. 

And  now,  gentlemen,  in  closing,  I  will  narrate  to  you 
the  worst  of  the  prisoner's  case.  I  will  make  confession 
for  him  of  the  length  and  breadth  of  his  offence.  There 
resides  in  this  city  a  man  named  Daniel  Bell,  who  was 
once  held  as  a  slave,  but  who  purchased  his  own  free 
dom.  He  had  a  family,  consisting  of  his  wife  and  eight 
or  ten  children.  These  were  manumitted  by  their 
master,  when  he  was  brought  to  that  most  searching 
of  all  earthly  tribunals,  —  the  deathbed.  After  the 
master's  decease,  his  heirs  attempted  to  reclaim  the 
property  ;  for  the  living  and  the  dying  have  very  dif 
ferent  views  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Their  ground 
of  claim  was,  that  the  master  was  not  of  sound  and  dis 
posing  mind  when  he  made  the  deed  of  manumission. 
But  the  magistrate  who  prepared  the  deed,  and  before 
whom  it  was  executed  and  acknowledged,  set  that  pre 
tence  aside  by  his  own  knowledge  of  the  grantor's 
sanity ;  and  so  the  family  of  Bell  passed  as  free,  and 
were  treated  as  free,  for  years.  At  length  this  magis 
trate  died,  and  immediately  the  attempt  to  reduce  the 
family  to  bondage  was  renewed.  A  trial  was  had,  and 
through  default  of  the  now  deceased  magistrate's  testi 
mony,  a  verdict  against  them  was  obtained.  But  new 
evidence  was  discovered,  anoT  one  of  the  most  respect 
able  counsellors  of  this  court,  Joseph  H.  Bradley,  Esq., 
made  oath  as  to  his  belief  in  the  sufficiency  of  that  evi 
dence,  and  moved  for  a  new  trial.  It  was  while  these 
proceedings  were  pending,  in  behalf  of  the  wife  and 
children,  that  they  became  alarmed  lest  they  should  be 
clandestinely  sent  to  the  south,  and  there  be  plunged 
into  irredeemable  slavery.  Believing  themselves  free, 


117 

and  fearing  bondage,  they  did  send  to  Philadelphia  for 
assistance,  (I  tell  yon  the  worst  of  it,)  in  being  rescued 
from  such  a  fate.  This  defendant,  Drayton,  being  led 
also  to  believe  that  they  were  free,  did  come  to  assist 
them.  Drayton  might  have  said  to  himself,  "  Men  go  to 
assist  Poles  and  Hungarians,  and  even  Texans,  and  get 
glory  for  it ;  and  why  should  I  not  assist  free  women 
and  children  in  imminent  danger  of  bondage  ? "  He  ar- 

D  O 

rived  here  on  Thursday  evening,  the  13th  of  April,  and, 
having  no  other  special  business,  prepared  to  sail  from 
here,  and  did  so  sail,  on  Saturday  evening,  the  15th. 
Hell's  family  knew  the  place  where  the  defendant's 
vessel  was  anchored,  and  the  time  fixed  for  its  departure. 
Drayton,  expecting  to  meet  them  there  at  the  time  ap 
pointed,  was  not  at  his  vessel  during  the  whole  evening. 
But  one  thing  happened  which  he  did  not  expect,  and 
had  not  provided  against.  Hell's  family  had  a  few 
friends  whom  they  thought  they  could  take  with  them. 
They  did  not  propose  any  spoiling  of  the  Egyptians, 
but  thought  the  escape  of  a  few  Israelites  lawful.  Hut 
these  friends  had  their  friends,  and  they  still  another 
circle  ;  and  so,  while  the  defendant  was  absent  from 
his  vessel  on  Saturday  evening,  and  without  his  knowl 
edge  or  consent,  they  flocked  down  and  stowed  them 
selves  in  the  hold;  so  that, — and  I  say  now,  gentle 
men,  what  I  religiously  believe  to  be  true,  —  when 
these  slaves  were  ordered  to  come  on  deck  after  the 
capture,  the  prisoner  was  as  much  astonished  as  any 
body  at  the  number  of  fishes  that  had  got  into  his  net. 
These,  gentlemen,  are  the  facts,  and,  as  I  believe, 
all  the  important  facts  pertaining  to  this  case  ;  and  on 
these  facts  we  claim  that  you  must  acquit  the  prisoner 
of  the  offence  of  larceny. 

NOTE.  This  case  and  one  or  two  others  were  tried,  and,  in  conse 
quence  of  a  series  of  most  extraordinary  rulings  by  the  court,  a  verdict 
of  "guilty"  was  rendered. 

Every  lawyer  knows  that  in  the  course  of  a  trial,  when  counsel  can 


118 

have  no  time  for  examination  or  reflection,  they  take  exceptions, 
•wherever  an  objection  to  the  decision  of  the  judge  seems  probably,  or 
even  plausibly  good.  A  clew,  therefore,  will  be  given  to  the  course 
•which  the  court  pursued  throughout  these  trials,  when  the  fact  is 
stated,  that,  on  appeal  to  the  Superior  Court,  seventeen  out  of  twenty- 
four  of  the  rulings  of  the  judge  to  which  exception  had  been  taken 
were  set  aside. 

The  cases  for  larceny  were  remanded  to  be  tried  anew,  when  a  ver 
dict  of  "  not  guilty"  was  rendered  in  them  all. 

Drayton,  the  captain,  and  Sayres,  his  mate,  were  afterwards  con 
victed  of  "  transporting  "  the  slaves,  and  were  fined. 

English,  the  "boy,"  though  indicted  in  one  hundred  and  fifteen 
indictments,  was  discharged  without  a  trial. 

Part  of  Bell's  free  family  were  ransomed ;  the  rest  were  sold  and 
sent  to  the  South. 

Although  the  facts  pertaining  to  the  mob,  the  repeated  attempts 
upon  Drayton's  life,  the  besieging  of  the  jail,  and  the  expulsion  of 
Drayton's  counsel  from  it  when  engaged  in  his  defence,  all  came  out 
before  the  grand  jury  that  found  these  scores  and  hundreds  of  indict 
ments,  and  though  it  was  notorious  who  some  of  the  ringleaders  of 
the  mob  were,  yet  no  bill  of  indictment  was  ever  found  against  any 
of  them. 


119 


LETTER 

To  THE  WHIG  CONVENTION,  (AND  ALSO  TO  THE  FREE  SOIL 
CONVENTION,  mutatis  mutandis,)  ACCEPTING  THEIR  RESPEC 
TIVE  NOMINATIONS  FOR  THE  THIRTY-FIRST  CONGRESS. 

[One  paragraph  of  this  Letter  is  omitted,  as  referring  to  a  subject  uncon' 
nected  with  the  'object  of  the  present  volume.] 

WEST  NEWTON,  Sept.  23,  1848. 
GENTLEMEN  ;. 

I  HAVE  received  with  lively  emotions  of  gratitude  a 
copy  of  the  resolutions  passed  at  a  district  convention, 
held  at  Dedham,  on  the  —  inst.  ;  from  one  of  which  it 
appears  that  I  was  unanimously  nominated  by  the 
convention,  as  their  candidate  for  the  Thirty-first  Con 
gress  of  the  United  States. 

The  convention  you  have  the  honor  to  represent 
was  pleased  to  refer  to  my  views  respecting  the  insti 
tution  of  slavery.  Some  of  these  views  were  partly 
expressed  in  the  remarks  made  by  me  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  on  the  30th  of  June  last ;  in  the  letter 
to  my  constituents  before  referred  to ;  and  in  my  argu 
ments  before  the  Criminal  Court  of  the  District  of 
Columbia,  in  the  "  Pearl  "  cases.  These,  and  kindred 
views,  I  shall  improve  all  fitting  opportunities  that  I 
may  ever  enjoy  to  enlarge  upon  and  enforce  ;  and  had 
I  the  tongue  of  an  angel,  or  the  pen  of  inspiration,  I 
believe  I  could  use  them  on  no  holier  theme  than  in 
kindling  abhorrence  at  the  wrongs  suffered  by  the 
slave,  and  in  melting  the  universal  heart  of  humanity 
into  pity  for  his  lot  ;  for  I  hold  it  to  be  impossible  for 
the  soul  of  a  slave,  —  benighted,  strangled,  and  buried 


120 

alive  as  it  is, — ever  fully  to  know  and  feel  the  joys 
of  that  spiritual  liberty  wherewith  Christ  maketh  his 
disciples  free. 

Be  pleased,  gentlemen,  to  accept  my  thanks  for  the 
very  kind  manner  in  which  you  have  made  known  to 
me  the  decision  of  the  convention  you  represent,  and 
believe  me, 

Very  truly  and  sincerely,  yours,  &c.,  &c., 

HORACE  MANN. 


121 


SPEECH 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  or  REPRESENTATIVES  OF  THE  UNIT 
ED  STATES,  FEBRUARY  23,  1849,  ON  SLAVERY  AND  THE 
SLAVE  TRADE  IN  THE  DISTRICT  OF  COLUMBIA. 

MIL  CHAIRMAN; 

There  is  a  bill  upon  the  speaker's  table  which  pro 
vides  for  abolishing  the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of 
Columbia.  For  three  successive  days  we  have  tried  in 
vain  to  reach  it,  in  the  order  of  business.  Its  oppo 
nents  have  baffled  our  efforts.  Our  difficulty  is  not  in 
carrying  the  bill,  but  in  reaching  it.  I  am  not  without 
apprehension  that  the  last  sands  of  this  Congress  will 
run  out,  without  any  action  upon  the  subject.  Even 
should  the  bill  be  taken  up,  it  is  probable  that  all  de 
bate  upon  it  will  be  suppressed  by  that  sovereign  si 
lencer, —  the  previous  question.  Hence  I  avail  myself 
of  the  present  opportunity,  as  it  is  probably  the  only 
one  I  shall  have,  during  the  present  session,  to  sub 
mit  my  views  upon  it. 

I  frankly  avow,  in  the  outset,  that  the  bill  provides 
for  one  part  only  of  an  evil,  whose  remedy,  as  it  seems 
to  me,  is  not  only  the  object  of  a  reasonable  desire,  but 
of  a  righteous  and  legal  demand.  The  bill  proposes  the 
abolition,  not  of  slavery,  but  only  of  the  slave  trade,  in 
the  District  of  Columbia.  My  argument  will  go  to 
show,  that,  within  the  limits  of  this  District,  slavery 
ought  not  to  exist  in  fact,  and  does  not  exist  in  law. 

Sir,  in  the  first  place,  let  us  inquire  what  is  the  state 
of  things  in  this  District  on  this  subject.  The  gentle 
man  from  Indiana,  [Mr.  R.  W.  THOMPSON,]  who  ad 
dressed  us  a  few  days  since,  used  the  following 
language : — 

11 


122 

"  What  is  the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia  ?  I 
have  heard  a  great  deal  said  about  'slave  pens,1 — about 
slaves  sold  at  auction, —  and  about  stripping  the  mother  from 
the  child,  and  the  husband  from  the  wife.  These  things  may 
exist  here,  but  I  do  not  know  of  them.  Since  I  have  been  in 
the  habit  of  visiting  the  District,  —  which  is  from  my  boy 
hood, —  I  have  never  seen  a  negro  sold  here,  —  I  have  never 
seen  a  band  of  negroes  taken  off  by  the  slave  trader.  I  do 
not  remember  that  I  have  ever  seen  the  slave  trader  himself. 
I  know  nothing  of  the  '  slave  pen  '  that  is  so  much  talked 
about.  It  may  be  here,  however,  and  these  things  may  hap 
pen  every  day  before  the  eyes  of  gentlemen  who  choose  to 
hunt  them  up  ;  but  for  myself,  I  have  no  taste  for  such 
things." 

Now,  sir,  if  the  gentleman  means  to  say  that  he  has 
no  personal  knowledge  of  "  slave  pens  "  and  of  the 
slave  traffic  in  this  District,  that  is  one  thing ;  bat  if 
he  means  to  deny  or  call  in  question  the  existence  of 
the  traffic  itself,  or  of  the  dens  where  its  concentrated 
iniquities  make  up  the  daily  employment  of  men,  that 
is  quite  another  thing.  Sir,  from  the  western  front  of 
this  Capitol,  from  the  piazza  that  opens  out  from  your 
congressional  library,  as  you  cast  your  eye  along  the 
horizon  and  over  the  conspicuous  objects  of  the  land 
scape, —  the  President's  Mansion,  the  Smithsonian  In 
stitution,  and  the  site  of  the  Washington  Monument, 
you  cannot  fail  to  see  the  horrid  and  black  receptacles 
where  human  beings  are  penned  like  cattle,  and  kept 
like  cattle,  that  they  may  be  sold  like  cattle,  —  as 
strictly  and  literally  so  as  oxen  and  swine  are  kept  and 
sold  at  the  Smithfield  shambles  in  London,  or  at  the 
cattle  fair  in  Brighton.  In  a  communication  made 
during  the  last  session,  by  the  mayor  of  this  city,  to 
an  honorable  member  of  this  House,  he  acknowledges 
the  existence  of  slave  pens  here.  Up  and  down  the 
beautiful  river  that  sweeps  along  the  western  margin 
of  the  District,  slavers  come  and  go,  bearing  their 
freight  of  human  souls  to  be  vended  in  this  market- 


123 

place  ;  and  after  they  have  changed  hands,  according 
to  the  forms  of  commerce,  they  are  retransported,  — 
the  father  of  a  family  to  go,  perhaps,  to  the  rice  fields 
of  South  Carolina,  the  mother  to  the  cotton  fields  of 
Alabama,  and  the  children  to  be  scattered  over  the 
sugar  plantations  of  Louisiana  or  Texas. 

Sir,  it  is  notorious  that  the  slave  traders  of  this 
District  advertise  for  slaves  in  the  newspapers  of  the 
neighboring  counties  of  Maryland,  to  be  delivered  in 
any  numbers  at  their  slave  pens  in  this  city  ;  and  that 
they  have  agents,  in  the  city  and  out  of  it,  who  are 
engaged  in  supplying  victims  for  their  shambles.  Since 
the  gentleman  from  Indiana  was  elected  to  this  Con 
gress,  and,  I  believe,  since  he  took  his  seat  in  this 
Congress,  one  coffle  of  about  sixty  slaves  came,  chained 
and  driven,  into  this  city  ;  and  at  about  the  same  time 
another  coffle  of  a  hundred.  Here  they  were  lodged 
for  a  short  period,  were  then  sold,  and  went  on  their 
returnless  way  to  the  ingulfing  south. 

Sir,  all  this  is  done  here  under  our  own  eyes,  and 
within  hearing  of  our  own  ears.  All  this  is  done  now, 
and  it  has  been  done  for  fifty  years,  —  ever  since  the 
seat  of  the  national  government  was  established  in 
this  place,  and  ever  since  Congress,  in  accordance  with 
the  constitution,  has  exercised  "  exclusive  legislation  " 
over  it.  But  the  gentleman  from  Indiana,  though  ac 
customed  to  visit  this  District  from  his  boyhood,  has 
"  never  seen  a  negro  sold  here  ;  "  —  he  has  "  never 
seen  a  band  of  negroes  taken  off  by  the  slave  tra 
der  ;  "  he  does  not  remember  "  to  have  seen  the  slave 
trader  himself;  "  he  knows  "  nothing  of  the  '  slave  pen ' 
that  is  so  much  talked  about."  Sir,  the  eye  sees,  not 
less  from  the  inner  than  from  the  outer  light.  The 
eye  sees  what  the  mind  is  disposed  to  recognize.  The 
image  upon  the  retina  is  nothing,  if  there  be  not  an 
inward  sense  to  discern  it.  The  artist  sees  beauty  ; 
the  philosopher  sees  relations  of  cause  and  effect  j  the 


124 

benevolent  man  catches  the  slightest  tone  of  sorrow  ; 
but  the  insensate  heart  can  wade  through  tears  and  see 
no  weeping,  and  can  live  amidst  groans  of  anguish, 
and  the  air  will  be  a  non-conductor  of  the  sound.  I 
know  a  true  anecdote  of  an  American  gentleman  who 
walked  through  the  streets  of  London  with  a  British 
nobleman  ;  and  being  beset  at  every  step  of  the  way 
by  squalid  mendicants,  the  American,  at  the  end  of 
the  excursion,  adverted  to  their  having  run  a  gantlet 
between  beggars.  "  What  beggars  ?  "  said  his  lordship  ; 
"  /  have  seen  none." 

But  the  gentleman  from  Indiana  says,  "  But  for  my 
self,  I  have  no  taste  for  such  things."  His  taste  ex 
plains  his  vision.  Suppose  Wilberforce  and  Clarkson 
to  have  had  no  "  taste  "  for  quelling  the  horrors  of  the 
African  slave  trade.  Suppose  Howard  and  Mrs.  Fry 
to  have  had  no  "  taste  "  for  laying  open  the  abomina 
tions  of  the  prison-house,  and  for  giving  relief  to  the 
prisoner.  Suppose  Miss  Dix  to  have  had  no  "  taste  " 
for  carrying  solace  and  comfort  and  restoration  to  the 
insane.  Suppose  the  Abbe  L'Epee  to  have  had  no 
"taste"  for  teaching  deaf  mutes;  or  the  Abbe  Hauy 
for  educating  the  blind  ;  or  M.  Seguin  and  others  for 
training  idiots,  and  for  educing  docility  and  decency, 
and  a  love  of  order  from  those  almost  imperceptible 
germs  of  reason  and  sense,  that  barely  distinguish  them 
from  the  brutes  !  Suppose  these  things,  and  in  what 
a  different  condition  would  the  charities  and  the  suffer 
ings  of  the  world  have  been !  Herod  had  no  "  taste  " 
for  sparing  the  lives  of  the  children  of  Bethlehem,  and 
of  all  the  coasts  thereof;  and  doubtless  he  could  have 
said,  with  entire  truth,  that  he  never  heard  the  voice, 
in  Rama,  of  lamentation  and  weeping  and  great  mourn 
ing  ;  nor  saw,  among  all  the  mothers  of  Syria,  any 
Rachel  weeping  for  her  children  and  refusing  to  be 
comforted,  because  they  were  not.  But,  sir,  just  in 
proportion  as  the  light  of  civilization  and  Christianity 


125 

dawns  upon  the  world,  will  men  be  found  who  have  a 
"  taste  "  for  succoring  the  afflicted  and  for  righting  the 
wronged.  It  was  the  clearest  proof  of  the  Groat 
Teacher's  mission,  that  he  had  "a  taste  "  for  going 
about  doing  good. 

During  the  last  fifty  years,  and  especially  during  the 
last  half  of  these  fifty  years,  the  world  has  made  great 
advances  in  the  principles  of  liberty.  Human  rights 
have  been  recognized,  and  their  practical  enjoyment,  to 
some  extent,  secured.  There  is  not  a  government  in 
Europe,  even  the  most  iron  and  despotical  of  them  all, 
that  has  not  participated  in  the  ameliorations  which 
characterize  the  present  age.  A  noble  catalogue  of 
rights  has  been  wrested  by  the  British  commons  from 
the  British  nohility.  France  and  Italy  have  been  rev 
olutionized.  Even  the  Pope  of  Rome,  whose  power 
seemed  as  eternal  as  the  hills  on  which  he  was  seated, 
has  sunk  under  the  shock.  Prussia,  and  all  the  Ger 
manic  powers,  with  the  exception  of  Austria,  have 
been  half  revolutionized  ;  and  even  the  icy  despotisms 
of  Austria  and  Russia  are  forced  to  relent  under  those 
central  fires  of  liberty  which  burn  forever  in  the 
human  heart,  as  the  central  fires  of  the  earth  burn 
forever  at  its  core.  Great  Britain  has  abolished  African 
slavery  throughout  all  her  realms.  Prance  has  de 
clared  that  any  one  who  shall  voluntarily  become  the 
owner  of  a  slave,  or  shall  voluntarily  continue  to  be 
the  owner  of  a  slave  cast  upon  him  hy  bequest  or  in 
heritance,  shall  cease  to  be  a  citizen  of  Prance.  Den 
mark  has  abolished  slavery  wherever  it  existed  in  her 
possessions.  The  Bey  of  Tunis,  acting  under  the 
light  of  the  Mahometan  religion,  has  abolished  it.  The 
priests  of  Persia  declare  the  sentiment  to  have  come  by 
tradition  from  Mahomet  himself,  "  that  the  worst  of 
men  is  the  seller  of  men."  Not  only  all  civilized  na 
tions,  but  the  half  civilized,  the  semi-barbarous,  are 
acting  under  the  guidance  of  the  clearer  light  and  the 
11* 


126 

higher  motives  of  our  day.  But  there  is  one  conspic 
uous  exception  ;  there  is  one  government  which  closes 
its  eyes  to  this  increasing  light ;  which  resists  the  per 
suasion  of  these  ennobling  motives  ;  which,  on  the 
grand  subject  of  human  liberty  and  human  rights,  is 
stationary  and  even  retrogrades,  while  the  whole  world 
around  is  advancing ;  sleeps  while  all  others  are 
awaking ;  loves  its  darkness  while  all  others  are  aspir 
ing  and  ascending  to  a  purer  air  and  a  brighter  sky. 
This  government,  too,  is  the  one  which  is  most  boast 
ful  and  vain-glorious  of  its  freedom;  and  if  the  humil 
iating  truth  must  be  spoken,  this  government  is  our 
own.  In  regard  to  slavery  and  the  slave  trade  in  this 
District,  where  we  possess  the  power  of  exclusive  legis 
lation,  we  stand  where  we  stood  fifty  years  ago.  Not 
a  single  ameliorating  law  has  been  passed.  In  practice, 
we  are  where  we  were  then  ;  in  spirit,  there  are  proofs 
that  we  have  gone  backward. 

There  are  now  on  the  surface  of  the  globe  two  con 
spicuous  places,  —  places  which  are  attracting  the  gaze 
of  the  whole  civilized  world,  — whither  men  and  women 
are  brought  from  great  distances  to  be  sold,  and  whence 
they  are  carried  to  great  distances  to  suffer  the  heaviest 
wrongs  that  human  nature  can  bear.  One  of  these 
places  is  the  coast  of  Africa,  which  is  among  the  most 
pagan  and  benighted  regions  of  the  earth  ;  the  other  is 
the  District  of  Columbia,  the  capital  and  seat  of  gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States. 

As  far  back  as  1808,  Congress  did  what  it  could  to 
abolish  the  slave  trade  on  the  coast  of  Africa.  In  1820 
it  declared  the  foreign  slave  trade  to  be  piracy ;  but  on 
the  31st  of  January,  1849,  a  bill  was  introduced  into 
this  House  to  abolish  the  domestic  slave  trade  in  this 
District,  — here,  in  the  centre  and  heart  of  the  nation, 
—  and  seventy-two  representatives  voted  against  it,  — 
voted  to  lay  it  on  the  table,  where,  as  we  all  know,  it 
would  sleep  a  dreamless  sleep.  This  was  in  the  House 


127 

of  Representatives.  It  is  well  known  that  the  Senate 
is  still  more  resistant  of  progress  than  the  House  ;  and 
it  is  the  opinion  of  many  that,  even  if  a  hill  should 
pass  both  House  and  Senate,  it  would  receive  the  Ex- 
ivutive  veto.  By  authority  of  Congress,  the  city  of 
Washington  is  the  Congo  of  America. 

But,  still  more  degrading  than  this,  there  is  another 
contrast  which  we  present  to  the  whole  civilized 
world.  The  very  slaves  upon  whom  we  have  trodden 
have  risen  above  us,  and  their  moral  superiority  makes 
our  conduct  ignominious.  Not  Europeans  only,  not 
only  Arabians  and  Turks,  are  emerging  from  the  inhu 
manity  and  the  enormities  of  the  slave  traffic  ;  but  even 
our  own  slaves,  transplanted  to  the  land  of  their  fathers, 
are  raising  barriers  against  the  spread  of  this  execrable 
commerce.  On  the  shores  of  Africa,  a  republic  is 
springing  up,  whose  inhabitants  were  transplanted  from 
this  Egypt  of  bondage.  And  now,  look  at  the  govern 
ment  which  these  slaves  and  descendants  of  slaves 
have  established,  and  contrast  it  with  our  own.  They 
discard  the  institution  of  slavery,  while  we  cherish  it. 
A  far  greater  proportion  of  their  children  than  of  the 
white  children  of  the  slave  states  of  this  Union  are  at 
school.  In  the  metropolis  of  their  nation,  their  flag 
does  not  protect  the  slave  traffic,  nor  wave  over  the 
slave  mart.  Would  to  God  that  the  very  opposite  of 
this  were  not  true  of  our  own  !  Their  laws  punish 
the  merchandise  of  human  beings ;  our  laws  sanction 
and  encourage  it.  They  have  erected,  and  are  erect 
ing,  fortifications  and  military  posts  along  the  shores  of 
the  Atlantic,  for  seven  hundred  miles,  to  prevent  pirates 
from  invading  the  domain  of  their  neighbors,  and  kid 
napping  people  who,  to  them,  are  foreign  nations.  We 
open  market-places  here,  at  the  centre  of  the  nation, 
where,  from  seven  hundred  miles  of  coast,  the  sellers 
may  come  to  sell,  and  where  buyers  may  come  to  buy, 
and  whence  slaves  are  carried  almost  as  far  from  their 


128 

birthplace  as  Africa  is  from  America.  The  governor 
of  Liberia  has  lately  made  a  voyage  to  England  arid 
France,  and  entered  into  treaties  of  amity  and  com 
merce  with  them  ;  and  he  has  obtained  naval  forces 
from  them,  to  abolish  this  traffic  in  human  beings.  At 
the  same  time,  we  are  affording  guaranties  to  the  same 
traffic.  Virginia  and  Maryland  are  to  the  slave  trade 
what  the  interior  of  Africa  once  was.  The  Potomac 
and  the  Chesapeake  are  the  American  Niger  and  Bight 
of  Benin  ;  while  this  District  is  the  great  government 
barracoon,  whence  coffles  are  driven  across  the  country 
to  Alabama  or  Texas,  as  slave  ships  once  bore  their 
dreadful  cargoes  of  agony  and  woe  across  the  Atlantic. 
The  very  race,  then,  which  were  first  stolen,  brought 
to  this  country,  despoiled  of  all  the  rights  which  God 
had  given  them,  and  kept  in  bondage  for  generations, 
at  last,  after  redeeming  themselves,  or  being  restored 
to  their  natural  liberty  in  some  other  way,  have  crossed 
the  ocean,  established  a  government  for  themselves, 
and  are  now  setting  us  an  example  which  should  cause 
our  cheeks  to  blister  with  shame. 

Sir,  there  is  an  idea  often  introduced  here  and  else 
where,  and  made  to  bear  against  any  restriction  of  sla 
very,  or  any  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the  slave, 
which  I  wish  to  consider.  It  was  brought,  odiously 
and  prominently  forward  the  other  day,  by  the  gentle 
man  from  Pennsylvania,  [Mr.  CHARLES  BROWN.]  The 
idea  is,  that  the  slaves  are  in  a  better  condition  in  this 
country  than  they  would  have  been  at  home.  It  is 
affirmed  that  they  are  brought  under  some  degree  of 
civilizing  and  humanizing  influences  amongst  us,  which 
they  would  not  have  felt  in  the  land  of  their  fathers. 

Let  us  look,  first,  at  the  philosophy  of  this  notion, 
and  then  at  its  morality.  All  those  who  use  this  argu 
ment  as  a  defence  or  a  mitigation  of  the  evils  of  sla 
very,  or  as  a  final  cause  for  its  existence,  assume  that 
if  the  present  three  million  slaves,  who  now  darken 


L20 

our  southern  horizon,  and  fill  the  air  with  tlioir  groans, 
had  not  been  hero  in  their  present  state  of  bondage, 
they  would  have  been  in  Africa,  in  a  state  of  pagan 
ism.  Now,  the  slightest  reflection  shows  that  this  as 
sumption  has  no  basis  of  truth.  Not  one  of  them  all 
would  now  have  been  in  existence,  if  their  ancestors 
had  not  been  brought  to  this  country.  And,  according 
to  the  laws  of  population  operative  among  barbarous 
nations,  there  are  now  just  as  many  inhabitants, — 
pagans,  cannibals,  or  what  you  please,  —  in  Africa,  as 
there  would  have  been  if  the  spoiler  had  never  entered 
their  home,  and  ravished  and  borne  them  into  bondage. 
Among  savage  nations,  or  nomadic  tribes,  the  popula 
tion  equals  the  means  of  subsistence.  Take  away 
two,  three,  or  four  per  cent,  of  the  consumers,  and 
the  vacuum  is  immediately  filled.  The  population 
keeps  up  to  the  level  of  the  production.  Among  such 
people,  there  is  always  a  tendency  to  increase  faster 
than  the  means  of  living  increase.  Take  away  a  part 
of  them,  and  this  tendency  to  increase  takes  effect  by 
its  own  vigor, —  it  executes  itself.  It  is  like  a  bow 
that  unbends,  or  a  spring  that  uncoils,  as  soon  as  an 
external  pressure  is  removed.  Dam  up  a  fountain,  and 
the  weight  of  the  accumulating  strata  will  eventually 
check  the  outflow  from  the  spring.  So  it  is  of  a  savage 
population.  Of  them,  the  Malthusian  theory  is  true. 

And  how  infinitely  absurd  and  ridiculous  is  the  plea 
that  the  slaves  are  better  off  here  "  than  THEY  would 
have  been  in  Africa  "/  Go  out  into  the  streets  of  this 
city,  and  take  the  first  one  you  meet,  —  perhaps  he  is 
a  mulatto.  But  for  being  here,  he  would  have  been  a 
mulatto  in  the  middle  of  Africa,  would  he  ?  Take 
them  all.  — mulatto,  mestizo,  zambo,  and  all  "  the  vast 
variety  of  man,"  so  far  as  color  is  concerned,  —  and  if 
they  had  not  their  existence  here,  they  would  have  had 
it  in  Africa  !  This  is  the  doctrine.  Would  they  have 
had  the  same  American  names  also  ?  Would  they 


have  spoken  the  same  language,  and  worn  cotton 
grown  on  the  same  fields  ?  The  last  is  just  as  certain 
as  the  first.  It  is  all  more  silly  than  the  repinings  of 
the  silly  girls  who  grieved  because  their  mother  had 
not  married  a  certain  rich  suitor,  whose  addresses  in 
early  life  she  had  rejected  ;  for  then,  said  they,  how 
rich  we  should  have  been  !  No,  not  one  of  these  three 
millions  of  men.  women,  and  children,  would  have 
been  in  existence  in  Africa.  All  the  crime  of  their 
kidnapping ;  all  the  horrors  of  the  middle  passage  ;  all 
their  sufferings  for  two  centuries,  or  six  generations  ; 
and  all  the  calamities  that  are  yet  to  grow  out  of  their 
condition,  —  all  these  crimes  and  agonies  are  gratuitous 
crimes  and  agonies.  There  is  no  recompense  or  palli 
ation  for  them.  They  have  been  added  unnecessarily 
and  remorselessly  to  the  amount  of  human  guilt  and 
suffering  for  which  the  white  race  must  answer  in  the 
day  of  account.  The  idea,  then,  of  sending  the  slaves 
back  to  their  country  is  an  egregious  fallacy.  If  they 
were  to  be  sent  back  whence  they  came,  it  would  not 
be  to  Africa,  but  to  nonentity. 

If  the  ancestors  of  the  present  three  millions  of 
slaves  had  never  been  brought  here,  —  if  their  descend 
ants  had  never  been  propagated  here,  for  the  supposed 
value  of  their  services,  their  places  would  have  been 
supplied  by  white  laborers,  —  by  men  of  the  Cauca 
sian  race,  —  by  freemen.  Instead  of  the  three  million 
slaves,  of  all  colors,  we  should  doubtless  now  have  at 
least  three  million  white,  freeborn  citizens,  adding  to 
the  real  prosperity  of  the  country,  and  to  the  power 
of  the  Republic.  If  the  south  had  not  had  slaves  to 
do  their  work  for  them,  they  would  have  become  in 
genious  and  inventive  like  the  north,  and  would  have 
enlisted  the  vast  forces  of  nature  in  their  service,  — 
wind,  and  fire,  and  water,  and  steam,  and  lightning,  the 
mighty  energies  of  gravitation  and  the  subtle  forces  of 
chemistry.  The  country  might  not  have  had  so  gaudy 


131 

and   ostentatious  a   civilization   as   at   present,  but   it 
would  have  had  one  infinitely  more  pure  and  sound. 

But  admit  the  alleged  statement,  absurd  and  false  as  it 
is  ;  admit  that  these  three  millions  of  slaves  would  have 
belonged  to  Africa  if  they  had  not  belonged  to  America, 

—  that  they  would  have  been  born  of  the  same  fathers 
and  mothers  there  as  here,  so  that  those  of  them  who 
are  American  mulattoes  would  have  been   Ethiopian 
mulattoes  ;  and  admit,  further,  that  their  present  con 
dition  is  better  than  the  alternat'ive  condition  alleged, 

—  and  what  then  ?     Is  your  duty  done  ?     Is  it  enough 
if  you  have  made  the  condition  of  a  man  or  of  a  race  a 
little   better,  or  any  better,  if  you  have  not  made  it  as 
much  better  as  you  can  ?     What  standard  of  morals  do 
gentlemen  propose  to  themselves  ?     If  a  fellow-being  is 
suffering  under  a  hundred  diseases,  and  we  can  relieve 
him  from  them  all,  what  kind  of  benevolence  is  that 
which  boasts  of  relieving  him  from  one,  and  permits 
him  to  suffer  under  the  other  ninety  and  nine  ?     By 
the   law  of  nature  and  of  God,  the  slave,  like  every 
other  man,  is  entitled  "  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness  ;  "  he  is  entitled  to  his  earnings,  —  to  the 
enjoyment  of  his  social  affections,  —  to  the  develop 
ment  of  his  intellectual  and  moral  faculties,  —  to  that 
cultivation  of  his  religious  nature  which  shall  lit  him, 
not  merely  to  feel,  but  reason  of  righteousness,  tem 
perance,  and  a  judgment  to  come  ;  —  he  is  entitled  to 
all  these  rights,  of  which  he  has  been  cruelly  despoiled  ; 
and  when  he  catches  some  feeble  glimmering  of  some 
of  them,  we  withhold  the  rest,  and  defend  ourselves 
and  pride  ourselves  that  he  is  better  off  than  he  would 
have  been  in  some  other  country  or  in  some  other  con 
dition.     Suppose  the  Samaritan  had  bound  up  a  single 
wound,  or  relieved  a  single  pang  of  the  bleeding  way 
farer  who  had  fallen  among  thieves,  and  then  had  gone 
to  the  next  inn  and  boasted  of  his  benevolence.     He 
would    only   have    shown    the    difference    between  a 


132 

"good   Samaritan"  and  a  u  bigot  Samaritan."     The 
thieves  themselves  might  have  done  as  much. 

But  there  is  another  inquiry  which  the  champions 
of  slavery  have  got  to  answer  before  the  world  and 
before  Heaven.  If  American  slaves  are  better  off  than 
native  Africans,  who  is  to  be  thanked  for  it  ?  Has  their 
improved  condition  resulted  from  any  purposed  plan, 
any  well-digested,  systematized  measure,  carefully 
thought  out,  and  reasoned  out,  and  intended  for  their 
benefit  ?  Not  at  all.  •  In  all  the  southern  statute  books, 
and  legislative  records,  there  is  no  trace  of  any  such 
scheme.  Laws,  judicial  decisions,  the  writing  of  po 
litical  economists,  —  all  treat  the  slave  as  a  thing  to 
make  money  with.  Agricultural  societies  give  rewards 
for  the  best  crops.  Horse-jockey  societies  improve  the 
fleetness  of  the  breed  for  the  sports  of  the  turf.  Even 
the  dogs  have  professional  trainers.  But  not  one  thing 
is  done  to  bring  out  the  qualities  of  manhood  that  lie 
buried  in  a  slave.  Look  through  the  southern  statute 
books,  and  see  what  Draconian  penalties  are  inflicted 
for  teaching  a  slave  to  read.  — see  how  he  is  lashed  for 
attending  a  meeting  to  hear  the  Word  of  God.  On 
every  highroad  patrols  lie  in  wait  to  scourge  him  back 
if  he  attempts  to  visit  father,  mother,  wife,  child,  or 
friend,  on  a  neighboring  plantation.  By  day  and  by 
night,  at  all  times  and  every  where,  he  is  the  victim  of 
an  energetic  and  comprehensive  system  of  measures, 
which  blot  out  his  senses,  paralyze  his  mind,  degrade 
and  brutify  his  nature,  and  suppress  the  instinctive 
workings  of  truth,  generosity,  and  manhood  in  his 
breast.  All  the  good  that  reaches  him,  reaches  him  in 
defiance  of  these  privations  and  disabilities.  If  any 
light  penetrates  to  his  soul,  it  is  because  human  art 
cannot  weave  a  cloud  dense  and  dark  enough  to  be 
wholly  impervious  to  it.  There  are  some  blessings 
which  the  goodness  of  God  will  bestow  in  spite  of  hu 
man  efforts  to  intercept  them.  It  is  these  only  which 


133 

reach  the  slave.  And  after  having  built  up  all  barriers 
to  forbid  the  access  of  improvement  ;  after  having 
sealed  his  senses  by  ignorance,  and  more  than  half  ob 
literated  his  faculties  by  neglect  and  perversion,  the 
oppressor  turns  round,  and  because  there  are  some 
scanty,  incidental  benefits  growing  out  of  the  very  de- 
plorableness  of  his  condition,  he  justifies  himself  before 
the  world,  and  claims  the  approval  of  Heaven,  because 
the  slave  is  better  off  here  than  he  would  be  in  Africa. 
Sir,  such  an  argument  as  this  is  an  offence  to  Heaven. 
I  consider  it  to  be  as  much  worse  than  atheism  as 
Christianity  is  better.  And  when  such  an  argument 
comes  from  a  gentleman  belonging  to  a  free  state  ; 
when  it  comes  from  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania, 
[Mr.  BROWN,]  from  a  representative  of  the  city  of 
William  Penn  ;  when  he,  without  motive,  without  in 
ducement,  offers  such  a  gratuity  to  the  devil,  I  can  ac 
count  for  it  only  on  the  principle  of  the  man  who, 
having  a  keen  relish  for  the  flesh  of  swine,  said  he 
wished  he  were  a  Jew,  that  he  might  have  the  pleasure 
of  eating  pork  and  committing  a  sin  at  the  same  time. 
But  the  subject  presents  a  still  more  painful  aspect. 
How  are  slaves  made  better,  and  from  what  motives 
are  they  made  better,  in  this  country  ?  It  is  no  secret 
that  I  am  about  to  tell.  There  are  certain  virtues  and 
sanctities  which  increase  the  pecuniary  value  of  certain 
slaves  :  and  there  are  certain  vices  and  debasements 
which  increase  the  market  price  of  others.  If  a  master 
wishes  to  repose  personal  confidence  in  his  slave,  he 
desires  to  have  him  honest  and  faithful  to  truth.  But 
if  he  desires  to  make  use  of  him  to  deceive  and  cajole 
and  defraud,  then  he  wishes  to  make  him  cunning  and 
tricky  and  false.  If  the  master  trains  the  slave  to  take 
care  of  his  own  children,  or  of  his  favorite  animals, 
then  he  wishes  to  have  him  kind  ;  but  if  he  trains  him 
for  a  tasker  or  a  field  overseer,  then  he  wishes  to  have 
him  severe.  Now,  it  is  in  this  way  that  some  of  the 
12 


134 

Christian  attributes  of  character,  being  directly  con 
vertible  into  money  or  money's  worth,  enhance  the 
value  of  a  slave.  Hence,  it  is  said  in  advertisements 
that  a  slave  is  pious,  and,  at  the  auction  block,  the 
hardened  and  heartless  seller  dwells  upon  the  Christian 
graces  and  religious  character  of  s^ne  slaves  with  the 
unction  of  an  apostle.  The  purchaser  sympathizes, 
and  only  desires  to  know  whether  the  article  be  a  real 
or  a  sham  Christian.  If  mere  bones  and  muscles  com 
pacted  into  human  shape  be  worth  five  hundred  dollars, 
then,  if  the  auctioneer  can  warrant  the  subject  to  have 
the  meekness  of  Moses  and  the  patience  of  Job,  the 
same  article  may  be  worth  seven  hundred.  If  the 
slave  will  forgive  injuries,  not  merely  seventy  times 
seven,  but  injuries  inflicted  all  his  life  long,  then  an 
additional  hundred  may  be  bid  for  him.  If  he  pos 
sesses  all  the  attributes  of  religion  and  piety,  the  en 
durance  of  a  hero,  the  constancy  of  a  saint,  the  firm 
ness  of  a  martyr,  the  trustingness  of  a  disciple,  — all 
except  those  which  go  to  make  him  feel  like  a  man, 
and  believe  himself  a  man,  —  then  that  which  as  mere 
bone  and  muscle  was  worth  five  hundred  dollars,  is 
now  worth  a  thousand.  Sir,  is  not  this  selling  the 
Holy  Spirit?  Is  not  this  making  merchandise  of  the 
Savior  ?  Is  not  this  the  case  of  Judas  selling  his  Master 
over  again,  with  the  important  exception  of  the  remorse 
that  made  the  original  culprit  go  and  hang  himself? 
But  suppose  the  case  to  be  that  of  a  woman  ;  suppose 
her  ability  to  work  and  capacity  for  production  to  be 
worth  five  hundred  dollars  ;  suppose,  in  addition  to 
this,  she  is  young  and  sprightly  and  voluptuous  ;  sup 
pose  the  repeated  infusion  of  Saxon  blood  has  almost 
washed  the  darkness  from  her  skin ;  and  suppose  she 
is  not  unwilling  to  submit  herself  to  the  libertine's  em 
brace  ;  then,  too,  that  which  before  was  worth  but  five 
hundred  dollars,  will  now  bring  two  thousand.  And 
thus  infernal  as  well  as  celestial  qualities  are  coined 


J35 

into  money,  according  to  the  demands  of  the  market 
and  the  uses  of  the  purchaser. 

Now.  it  is  only  in  some  such  incidental  way,  and 
with  regard  to  some  individuals,  that  it  can  be  said, 
that  their  condition  is  hetter  here  than  it  would  he  in 
Africa.  And  this  Improvement,  where  it  exists,  is  not 
the  result  of  any  system  of  measures  designed  for  their 
benefit,  but  is  the  product  of  selfish  motives,  turning 
godliness  into  gain  ;  and  where  more  gain  or  more 
gratification  can  be  obtained  by  the  debasement,  the 
irreligion,  the  pollution  of  the  slave,  there  the  instincts 
of  chastity,  the  sanctity  of  the  marriage  relation,  the 
holiness  of  maternal  love  are  all  profaned  to  give  secu 
rity  and  zest  to  the  guilty  pleasures  of  the  sensualist 
and  debauchee.  There  are  individual  exceptions  to 
what  I  have  said, — exceptions  which,  amid  surround 
ing  iniquity,  shine  "like  a  jewel  in  an  Ethiop's  ear," 
but  they  are  exceptions.  Laws,  institutions,  and  the 
prevailing  public  sentiment  are  as  I  have  described. 

I  regard  the  argument,  therefore,  of  the  gentleman 
from  Pennsylvania,  [Mr.  BROWN.]  not  only  as  utterly 
unsound  and  false  in  its  premises,  but  as  blasphemous 
in  its  conclusions.  Common  blasphemy  seldom  reaches 
beyond  exclamation.  It  is  some  fiery  outburst  of 
impious  passion,  that  flashes  and  expires.  But  the  gen 
tleman  reasons  it  out  coolly.  His  is  argumentative 
blasphemy,  borrowing  the  forms  of  logic  that  it  may 
appear  to  have  its  force,  and  transferring  it  from  the 
passions  to  the  intellect,  to  give  it  permanency. 

But  the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania  retorts  upon 
Massachusetts,  and  refers  to  certain  things  in  her  his 
tory  which  he  regards  as  disreputable  to  her.  In  this 
he  has  been  followed  by  the  gentleman  from  Virginia, 
[Mr.  BEDINGER,]  who  has  poured  out  a  torrent  of  abuse 
upon  my  native  state,  and  who  has  attempted  to  fortify 
his  own  intemperate  accusations  from  a  pro-slavery 
pamphlet  which  has  been  profusely  scattered  about  this 


136 

House  within  a  few  days  past,  and  which  is  not  merely 
full  of  falsehoods,  but  is  composed  of  falsehoods ;  so 
that  if  one  were  to  take  the  false  assertions  and  the  false 
arguments  out  of  it,  there  would  be  nothing  but  the 
covers  left.*  Sir,  I  am  very  far  from  arrogating  for 
Massachusetts  all  the  merits  and  the  virtues  which  she 
ought  to  possess.  I  mourn  over  her  errors,  and  would 
die  to  reform,  rather  than  spend  one  breath  to  defend 
them.  The  recital  of  her  offences  can  fall  more  sadly 
upon  no  ear  than  upon  my  own.  But  it  is  as  true  of  a 
state  as  of  an  individual,  that  repentance  is  the  first 
step  towards  reformation.  Massachusetts  has  commit 
ted  errors ;  but  when  they  were  seen  to  be  errors,  she 
discarded  them.  She  once  held  slaves ;  but  when  she 
saw  that  slavery  was  contrary  to  the  rights  of  man  and 
the  law  of  God,  she  emancipated  them.  She  was  the 
first  government  in  the  civilized  world,  —  in  the  whole 
world,  ancient  or  modern,  —  to  abolish  slavery,  wher 
ever  she  had  power  to  do  so.  This  is  an  honor  that 
no  rival  can  ever  snatch  from  her  brow.  Once,  —  I 
say  it  with  humiliation,  —  she  was  engaged  in  the  slave 
trade.  But  all  the  gold  that  could  be  earned  by  the 
accursed  traffic,  though  spent  in  the  splendors  of  luxury 
arid  the  seductions  of  hospitality,  could  not  save  the 
trader  himself  from  infamy  and  scorn  ;  and  I  am  sure  I 
am  right  in  saying  that  the  slave  trade  ceased  to  be 
conducted  by  Massachusetts  merchants,  and  to  be  car 
ried  on  in  Massachusetts  ships,  from  Massachusetts 
ports,  before  it  was  abandoned  by  the  merchants  and 
discontinued  in  the  ships  and  from  the  ports  of  any 
other  commercial  state  or  nation  in  the  world.  This, 
too,  is  an  honor,  which  it  will  be  hers,  through  all  the 
immortality  of  the  ages,  alone  to  wear.  But  Massa- 


*  Lecture  on  the  North  and  South.  Delivered  in  College  Hall, 
January  16,  1849,  before  the  Young  Men's  Mercantile  Library  Asso 
ciation  of  Cincinnati.  By  Elhvood  Fisher. 


137 

cliusetts,  it  is  still  said,  has  her  idolaters  of  Mammon  in 
other  forms.  It  is  charged  upon  her  that  many  of  her 
children  still  wallow  in  the  sty  of  intemperance  ;  that 
her  spiritualism  runs  wild  in  religious  vagaries  ;  and 
that  something  of  the  old  leaven  of  persecution  still 
clings  to  her  heart.  In  vindicating  what  is  right,  I 
will  not  defend  what  is  wrong.  I  cannot  deny, — 
would  to  God  that  I  could,  —  that  we  still  have  vices 
and  vicious  men  amongst  us.  There  are  those  there, 
as  elsewhere,  who,  if  they  were  to  hear  for  the  first 
time  of  the  River  of  Life  flowing  fast  by  the  throne 
of  God,  would  instinctively  ask  whether  there  were 
any  good  mill  sites  on  it.  There  are  those  there,  as 
elsewhere,  whose  highest  aspirations  for  heaven  and 
for  happiness,  whether  for  this  life  or  for  another,  are 
a  distillery  and  a  sugar-house,  with  steam  machinery 
to  mix  the  products.  There,  as  elsewhere,  there  are 
religionists  who  are  quick  to  imitate  the  Savior  when 
he  strikes,  but  despise  his  example  when  he  heals. 

But,  sir,  let  me  say  this  for  Massachusetts,  that  what 
ever  sins  she  may  have  committed  in  former  times, — 
whatever  dissenters  she  may  have  persecuted,  or 
witches  she  may  have  hanged,  or  Africans  she  may 
have  stolen  and  sold,  — she  has  long  since  abandoned 
these  offences,  and  is  bringing  forth  fruits  meet  for  re 
pentance.  And  is  a  state  to  have  no  benefit  from  a 
statute  of  limitations?  Is  a  crime  committed  by  an 
cestors  to  be  forever  imputed  to  their  posterity  ?  This 
is  worse  than  non-forgiveness  ;  it  is  making  punishment 
hereditary.  Sir,  of  these  offences,  Massachusetts  has 
repented  and  reformed ;  and  she  is  giving  that  noblest 
of  atonements  or  expiations,  which  consists  in  repair 
ing  the  wrong  that  has  been  done  ;  and  where  the  victim 
of  the  wrong  has  himself  passed  away,  and  is  beyond 
relief,  then  in  paying,  with  large  interest,  the  debt  to 
humanity  which  the  special  creditor  is  no  longer  pres 
ent  to  receive,  by  seeking  out  the  objects  of  want  and 
12* 


138 

suffering  wherever  they  may  be  found.  Sir,  our  ac 
cusers  unconsciously  do  us  the  highest  honor,  when,  in 
their  zeal  to  malign  us,  they  seek  for  historical  re 
proaches.  If  they  could  find  present  offences  where 
with  to  upbraid  us,  they  would  not  exhume  the  past. 
But  they  condemn  themselves,  for  they  show  that  even 
the  resuscitation  of  the  errors  of  the  dead  gives  them 
more  pleasure  than  a  contemplation  of  the  virtues  of 
the  living.  One  thing  is  certain  :  the  moment  the  other 
states  shall  imitate  our  present  example,  they  will  cease 
to  condemn  us  for  our  past  offences.  The  sympathy 
of  a  common  desire  for  improvement  will  destroy  the 
pleasure  of  crimination. 

And  where,  I  ask,  on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  is 
there  a  population  of  only  eight  hundred  thousand, 
who  are  striving  so  earnestly,  and  doing  so  much,  to 
advance  the  cause  of  humanity  and  civilization,  as  is 
doing  by  the  people  of  Massachusetts  ?  Where  else, 
where  universal  suffrage  is  allowed,  is  a  million  of  dol 
lars  voted  every  year,  by  the  very  men  who  have  to 
pay  it,  for  the  public,  free  education  of  every  child  in 
the  state  ? 

Where  else,  by  such  a  limited  population,  is  another 
million  of  dollars  voluntarily  voted  and  paid  each  year 
for  the  salaries  of  clergymen  alone  ?  Where  else, 
where  the  population  is  so  small,  and  natural  resources 
so  few  and  scanty,  is  still  another  million  of  dollars  an 
nually  given  in  charity  ?  — the  greater  portion  of  which 
is  sent  beyond  their  own  borders,  flows  into  every 
state  in  the  Union,  and  leaves  not  a  nation  on  the 
globe,  nor  an  island  in  the  sea,  un watered  by  its  fertil 
izing  streams.  Look  into  the  statute  book  of  Massa 
chusetts,  for  the  last  twenty  years,  and  you  will  see 
how  the  whole  current  of  her  legislation  has  set  in  the 
direction  of  human  improvement, — for  succoring  dis 
ease  or  restoration  from  it,  for  supplying  the  privations 
of  nature,  for  reclaiming  the  vicious,  for  elevating  all, 


139 

—  a  comprehensiveness  of  scope  that  takes  in  every 
human  heing,  and  an  energy  of  action  that  follows 
every  individual  with  a  blessing  to  his  home.  When 
others  will  abandon  their  offences,  then  let  the  remem 
brance  of  them  be  blotted  out. 

But,  sir,  I  think  it  proper  to  advert  to  the  fact  that 
I  have  had  other  proofs,  during  the  present,  session  of 
Congress,  of  the  same  spirit  of  crimination  and  oblo 
quy  which  was  so  fully  developed  in  the  speeches  of 
the  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania,  [Mr.  BROWN,]  and 
the  gentleman  from  Virginia,  [Mr.  BEDINGER.]  Through 
the  post-office  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  I  have 
been  in  the  regular  receipt  of  anonymous  tetters,  made 
up  mainly  of  small  slips  cut  from  newspapers  printed 
at  the  north,  describing  some  case  of  murder,  suicide, 
robbery,  or  other  offence.  These  have  been  arranged 
under  the  heads  of  different  states,  —  Ohio,  Pennsyl 
vania,  New  York,  Connecticut,  &c.,  and  accompanied, 
in  the  margin,  with  rude  drawings  of  a  school-book  or 
a  schoolhouse,  and  all  referred  to  Common  Schools,  as 
to  their  source.  Two  only,  of  the  whole  number  thus 
collected,  originated  in  Massachusetts,  and  one  of  these 
was  a  case  of  suicide  committed  by  a  man  who  had 
become  insane  from  the  loss  of  his  wife.  Which  of 
these  events,  in  the  opinion  of  my  anonymous  corre 
spondent,  constituted  the  crime,  —  whether  the  bereave 
ment  that  caused  the  insanity,  or  the  suicide  commit 
ted  in  one  of  its  paroxysms, — I  am  unable  to  say. 
Now,  what  satisfaction  even  a  bad  man  could  have  in 
referring  offences  against  law  and  morality  to  the  insti 
tution  of  public  schools,  when  he  must  have  known 
that  the  very  existence  of  the  offences  only  proves  that 
education  has  not  yet  done  its  perfect  work,  I  cannot 
conceive.  And  what  spite,  either  against  an  educa 
tional  office  which  I  once  held,  or  against  an  institution 
which  is  worthy  of  all  honor,  could  be  so  mean  and 
paltry  as  to  derive  gratification  from  referring  me  to 


140 

long  lists  of  offences,  only  one  of  which  was  commit 
ted  in  my  native  state,  I  must  leave  for  others  to  con 
jecture.  Surely  the  author  of  these  letters  must  have 
known  little  of  Common  Schools,  and  profited  by  them 
as  little  as  he  has  known.  Had  he  referred  to  any 
considerable  number  of  crimes  perpetrated  in  Massa 
chusetts,  I  would  take  his  letters  home  and  carry  them 
into  our  public  schools,  and  make  them  the  text  for  a 
sermon,  in  which  I  would  warn  the  children  to  beware 
of  all  crimes,  and  especially  of  the  meanness  and  the 
wickedness  which  feels  a  complacency  in  the  crimes 
of  others,  or  can  give  a  false  paternity  to  them.  And, 
sir,  I  should  be  sure  of  a  response ;  for  out  of  those 
schools  there  is  going  forth  a  nobler  band  of  young 
men  and  women  than  ever  before  conferred  intelli 
gence,  virtue,  refinement,  and  renown  upon  any  peo 
ple  or  community  on  the  face  of  the  globe. 

But  whatever  may  be  said  in  mitigation  or  in  con 
demnation  of  slavery  elsewhere,  there  are  special 
reasons  why  it  should  be  discontinued  in  this  District. 
This  District  is  the  common  property  of  the  nation. 
Having  power  of  exclusive  legislation  over  it,  we  are 
all  responsible  for  the  institutions  in  it.  While  slaves 
exist  in  it,  therefore,  it  can  be  charged  upon  the  north 
that  they  uphold  slavery.  This  is  unjust  to  us,  be 
cause  it  places  us  before  the  world  in  the  attitude  of 
sustaining  what  we  condemn.  It  wounds  our  moral 
and  religious  sensibilities,  because  we  believe  the  in 
stitution  to  be  cruel  towards  men,  and  sinful  in  the 
sight  of  Heaven;  and  yet  we  are  made  apparently  to 
sanction  it.  It  is  like  that  species  of  injustice  where 
a  man  is  compelled  by  a  tax  to  support  a  religion  which 
he  disbelieves,  and  to  pay  a  hierarchy  whom  his  con 
science  compels  him  to  denounce.  But  the  existence 
of  slavery  here  is  not  necessary  to  the  faith  or  the 
practice  of  our  southern  brethren.  If  they  believe  it 
to  be  a  useful  and  justifiable  institution,  then  they 


141 

evince  the  sincerity  of  that  belief  by  sustaining  and 
perpetuating  it  at  home.  For  this  purpose,  there  is  no 
necessity  of  a  crusade  to  propagate  it,  or  sustain  it 
elsewhere. 

Look  at  the  relation  which  we  bear  to  it,  in  another 
respect.  I  have  been  taught  from  my  earliest  child 
hood  that  "all  men  are  created  equal."  This  has  be 
come  in  me  not  merely  a  conviction  of  the  under 
standing,  but  a  sentiment  of  the  heart.  This  maxim 
is  my  principle  of  action,  whenever  I  am  called  upon 
to  act  ;  and  it  rises  spontaneously  to  my  contempla 
tions  when  I  speculate  upon  human  duty.  It  is  the 
plainest  corollary  from  the  doctrine  of  the  natural 
equality  of  man,  that  when  I  see  a  man,  or  a  class  of 
men,  who  are  not  equal  to  myself  in  opportunities,  in 
gifts,  in  means  of  improvement,  or  in  motives  and  in 
citements  to  an  elevated  character  and  an  exemplary 
lit!',  —  I  say,  it  is  the  plainest  corollary  that  I  should 
desire  to  elevate  those  men  to  an  equality  with  myself. 
However  far  my  own  life  may  fall  below  the  standard 
of  Christianity  and  gentlernanliness,  yet  I  hold  it  to  be 
clear,  that  no  man  is  a  Christian  or  a  gentleman,  who 
does  not  carry  about  an  habitual  frame  of  mind  which 
prompts  him,  as  far  as  he  has  the  means  to  do  it,  to  in 
struct  all  the  ignorance,  to  relieve  all  the  privations,  to 
minister  to  all  the  pains,  and  to  supply  all  the  deficien 
cies  of  those  with  whom  he  meets  in  the  daily  walks 
of  life  ;  and,  so  far  as  he  is  a  man  who  wields  influ 
ence,  possesses  authority,  or  exercises  legislative  power, 
he  is  bound  to  exert  his  gifts  and  his  prerogatives  for 
the  amelioration  and  the  improvement  of  his  fellow- 
men.  This  is  the  lowest  standard  of  duty  that  any 
one  who  aspires  to  be  a  Christian  or  a  gentleman  can 
set  up  for  his  guidance.  Now  take  the  case  of  a  man 
from  the  north,  who  has  incorporated  these  views,  or 
any  similitude  of  these  views,  into  his  character,  and 
who  has  occasion  to  visit  this  District.  Suppose  him 


142 

to  be  elected  and  sent  here  as  a  member  of  Congress, 
or  to  be  appointed  to  a  post  in  some  of  the  depart 
ments,  or  to  visit  this  city  on  public  business,  or  to 
come  here  from  motives  of  curiosity  ;  what  is  the  sight 
which  is  inflicted  upon  him  when  he  first  sets  his  foot 
within  this  common  property  of  the  nation,  —  when 
he  first  enters  this  household,  where  the  head  of  the 
nation  resides  and  directs  ?  Sir,  when  he  first  alights 
from  the  cars  that  bring  him  within  your  limits  and 
your  jurisdiction,  he  beholds  a  degraded  caste,  — a' 
race  of  men  whom  God  endowed  with  the  faculties  of 
intelligence,  but  whom  man  has  despoiled  of  the  power 
of  improving  those  faculties,  squalid  in  their  garb,  be 
traying  ignorance  in  every  word  they  utter,  unculti 
vated  in  their  manners  and  their  tastes,  fawning  for  a 
favor,  instead  of  standing  erect  like  men  who  are  con 
scious  of  rights  ;  or,  if  they  have  outgrown  servile 
and  sycophantic  habits,  then  erring  on  the  side  of  im 
pudence  and  insolence  as  much  as  they  erred  before 
on  that  of  cringing  and  servility.  He  repairs  to  his 
lodgings,  and  there,  too,  all  his  moral  sensibilities 
are  shocked  and  outraged,  by  seeing  a  class  of  men 
and  women  hopelessly  degraded,  cut  off  by  law  and 
custom  from  all  opportunity  of  emerging  from  their 
debasement  ;  whom  no  talent,  taste,  or  virtue  can  ever 
redeem  to  the  pleasures  and  the  rights  of  social  inter 
course.  He  sees  men  and  women  who  are  not  de 
graded  on  account  of  the  services  they  perform,  —  for 
"honor  and  shame  from  no  condition  rise,"  —  but  de 
graded  by  the  motive  and  spirit  from  which  the  services 
are  performed ;  men  and  women  who  have  no  induce 
ments  to  industry  and  frugality,  for  their  earnings  will 
all  be  seized  by  another ;  who  have  no  incentives  to 
self-respect,  for  they  can  never  emerge  from  their  me 
nial  condition  ;  who  are  bereaved  of  all  the  wonders 
and  glories  of  knowledge,  lest  under  its  expansions 
their  natures  should  burst  the  thraldom  that  enslaves 


143 

them  ;  and  all  whose  manly  qualities,  all  whose  higher 
faculties,  therefore,  are  irredeemably  and  hopelessly 
crushed,  extinguished,  obliterated,  so  that  nothing  but 
the  animal,  which  the  master  can  use  for  his  selfish 
purposes,  remains. 

Mr.  BRODHEAD,  [of  Pennsylvania.]  Would  you  ad 
vance  the  slaves  to  an  equal  social  and  political  condi 
tion  with  the  white  race  ? 

Mr.  MANN.  I  would  give  to  every  human  being  the 
best  opportunity  I  could  to  develop  and  cultivate  the 
faculties  which  God  has  bestowed  upon  him,  and 
which,  therefore,  he  holds  under  a  divine  charter.  [ 
would  take  from  his  neck  the  heel  that  has  trodden  him 
down;  I  would  dispel  from  his  mind  the  cloud  that 
has  shrouded  him  in  moral  night ;  I  would  remove  the 
obstructions  that  have  forbidden  his  soul  to  aspire  ;  and 
having  done  this,  I  would  leave  him,  as  I  would  leave 
every  other  man,  to  find  his  level,  —  to  occupy  the  po 
sition  to  which  he  should  be  entitled  by  his  intelligence 
and  his  virtues.  I  entertain  no  fears  on  the  much 
dreaded  subject  of  amalgamation.  Legal  amalgama 
tion  between  the  races  will  never  take  place,  unless,  in 
the  changed  condition  of  society,  reasons  shall  exist  to 
warrant  and  sanction  it ;  and,  in  that  case,  it  will  carry 
its  own  justification  with  it.  But  one  thing  I  could 
never  understand,  —  why  those  who  are  so  horror- 
stricken  at  the  idea  of  theoretic  amalgamation,  should 
exhibit  to  the  world,  in  all  their  cities,  on  all  their 
plantations,  and  in  all  their  households,  such  number 
less  proofs  of  practical  amalgamation.  I  never  could 
see  why  those  who  arraign  and  condemn  us  at  the 
north  so  vehemently,  because,  as  they  say,  we  ob 
trude  our  prying  eyes  into  what  they  call  a  "  domes 
tic  "  or  "  fireside  "  institution,  should  have  no  hesita 
tion  in  exhibiting  to  the  world,  through  all  their  bor 
ders,  ten  thousand,  and  ten  times  ten  thousand,  living 
witnesses,  that  they  make  it  a  bedside  institution. 


144 

Multitudes  of  the  slaves  of  the  south  bear  about  upon 
their  persons  a  brand  as  indelible  as  that  of  Cain  ;  but 
the  mark  has  been  fastened  upon  them,  not  for  their 
own  crimes,  but  for  the  crimes  of  their  fathers.  In 
the  complexion  of  the  slave,  we  read  the  horrid  history 
of  the  guilt  of  the  enslavers.  They  demonstrate  that 
the  one  race  has  been  to  the  other,  not  the  object  of 
benevolence,  but  the  victim  of  licentiousness. 

But  to  resume.  When  the  visitor  to  this  city  from 
the  north  leaves  his  lodgings,  and  goes  into  the  public 
streets,  half  the  people  whom  he  meets  there  are  of 
the  same  degraded  class.  Their  tattered  dress  and 
unseemly  manners  denote  congenital  debasement. 
Their  language  proclaims  their^ignbrance.  If  you 
have  occasion  to  send  them  on  an  errand,  they  cannot 
read  the  direction  of  a  note,  or  a  sign  on  a  shopboard. 
Their  ideas  are  limited  within  the  narrowest  range. 
They  speak  the  natural  language  of  servility,  and  they 
Avear  the  livery  of  an  inferior  condition.  The  convic 
tion  of  their  deplorable  state  is  perpetually  forced  upon 
the  mind.  You  do  not  need  their  color  to  remind 
you  of  their  degradation.  Color,  sir !  They  are  often 
times  almost  as  white  as  ourselves.  Sir,  there  is  not 
a  member  of  Congress  who  has  not  frequently  seen 
some  of  his  fellow-members,  in  the  spring  of  the 
year,  with  a  jaundiced  skin  more  sallow  and  more 
yellow  than  that  of  many  a  slave  who  is  bought  and 
sold  and  owned  in  this  city.  I  have  seen  members  of 
this  House  to  whom  I  have  been  disposed  to  give  a 
friendly  caution  to  keep  their  "  free  papers "  about 
their  persons,  lest  suddenly,  on  the  presumption  from 
color,  they  should  be  seized  and  sold  for  runaway 
slaves.  A  yellow  complexion  here  is  so  common  a 
badge  of  slavery,  that  one  whose  skin  is  colored  by 
disease  is  by  no  means  out  of  danger.  To  enjoy 
security,  a  man  must  do  more  than  take  care  of  his 
life  ;  he  must  take  care  of  his  health.  It  is  not  enough 


145 

to  take  heed  to  the  meditations  of  his  heart ;  he  must 
see  also  to  the  secretions  of  his  liver. 

But,  sir,  the  stranger  from  the  north  visits  the  courts 
of  justice  in  this  city;  he  goes  into  halls  set  apart  and 
consecrated,  even  in  the  dark  and  half-heathenish 
periods  of  English  history,  to  the  investigation  of 
truth  and  the  administration  of  justice  ;  but  if  he  sees 
any  specimens  of  the  colored  race  there,  he  sees  them 
only  as  menials.  They  cannot  go  there  as  witnesses. 
However  atrocious  the  wrongs  they  may  suffer  in  their 
own  person  and  character,  or  in  the  person  and  char 
acter  of  wife  or  children,  they  cannot  appeal  to  the 
courts  to  avenge  or  redress  them.  If  introduced  there 
at  all,  it  is  as  a  bale  of  goods  is  introduced,  or  as  an 
ox  or  a  horse  is  brought  within  their  purlieus,  for  the 
purpose  of  trying  some  disputed  question  of  identity 
or  ownership.  They  go  not  as  suitors,  but  as  sacri 
fices.  In  the  courts  of  law ;  in  the  temples  with 
which  all  our  ideas  of  justice,  of  right  between  man 
and  man,  are  associated  ;  where  truth  goes  to  be  vin 
dicated,  where  innocence  flies  to  be  avenged,  —  in 
these  courts,  an  entire  portion  of  the  human  race  are 
known,  not  as  men,  but  as  chattels,  as  cattle.  Where, 
for  them,  is  the  Magna  Charta  that  the  old  barons 
wrested  from  King  John  ?  Is  a  whole  race  to  be 
forever  doomed  to  this  outlawry  ?  Are  they  forever 
to  wear  a  "  wolfs  head,"  which  every  white  man  may 
cut  off  when  he  pleases  ?  Sir,  it  cannot  be  that  this 
state  of  things  will  last  forever.  If  all  the  rights  of 
the  black  race  are  thus  withheld  from  them,  it  is  just 
as  certain  as  the  progress  of  time  that  they,  too,  will 
have  their  Runnymede,  their  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  their  Bunker  Hill,  and  their  Yorktown. 

Such,  sir,  are  the  sights  that  molest  us  when  we 

come  here  from  the  north,  —  that  molest  us   in  the 

hotels,  that  molest  us  in  the  streets,  that  molest  us  in 

the  courts,  that  molest  us  every  where.    But  the  week 

13 


146 

passes  away,  and  the  Sabbath  comes,  —  the  day  of 
rest  from  worldly  toils,  the  day  set  apart  for  social 
worship,  when  men  come  together,  and,  by  their  mu 
tual  presence  and  assistance,  lift  up  the  hearts  of  each 
other  in  gratitude  to  God.  But  where  now  are  the 
colored  population,  that  seemed  to  be  so  numerous 
every  where  else  ?  Have  they  no  God  ?  Have  they 
no  interest  in  the  Savior's  example  and  precepts? 
Have  they  no  need  of  consolation,  of  faith  in  the 
Unseen,  to  help  them  bear  up  under  the  burdens  and 
anxieties  of  life  ?  Is  their  futurity  so  uncertain  or  so 
worthless  that  they  need  no  guide  to  a  better  country, 
or  that  they  can  be  turned  off  with  a  guide  as  ignorant 
and  blind  as  themselves  ? 

We  go  from  the  courts  and  the  churches  to  the 
schools.  But  no  child  in  whose  skin  there  is  a  shadow 
of  a  shade  of  African  complexion  is  to  be  found  there. 
The  channels  are  so  cut  that  all  the  sacred  and  heal 
ing  waters  of  knowledge  flow,  not  to  him,  but  by 
him.  Sir,  of  all  the  remorseless  and  wanton  cruelties 
ever  committed  in  this  world  of  wickedness  and 
woe,  I  hold  that  to  be  the  most  remorseless  and  wan 
ton  which  shuts  out  from  all  the  means  of  instruction 
a  being  whom  God  has  endued  with  the  capacities  of 
knowledge,  and  inspired  with  the  divine  desire  to 
know.  Strike  blossom  and  beauty  from  the  vernal 
season  of  the  year,  and  leave  it  sombre  and  cheerless  ; 
annihilate  the  harmonies  with  which  the  birds  of 
spring  make  vocal  the  field  and  the  forest,  and  let 
exulting  Nature  become  silent  and  desolate  ;  dry  up 
even  those  fountains  of  joy  and  gladsomeness  that 
flow  unbidden  from  the  heart  of  childhood,  and  let 
the  radiant  countenance  of  youth  become  dull  and 
stony  like  that  of  age  ;  —  do  all  this,  if  you  will,  but 
withhold  your  profane  hand  from  those  creative  sources 
of  knowledge  which  shall  give  ever-renewing  and 
ever-increasing  delight  through  all  the  cycles  of  im- 


147 

mortality,  and  which  have  the  power  to  assimilate  the 
liiiito  creature  more  and  more  nearly  to  the  infinite 
Creator.  Sir,  he  who  denies  to  children  the  acquisi 
tion  of  knowledge  works  devilish  miracles.  If  a  man 
destroys  rny  power  of  hearing,  it  is  precisely  the  same 
to  me  as  though,  leaving  my  faculty  of  hearing  un 
touched,  he  had  annihilated §all  the  melodies  and  har 
monies  of  the  universe.  If  a  man  obliterates  my  power 
of  vision,  it  is  precisely  the  same  to  rne  as  though  he 
had  hlotted  out  the  light  of  the  sun,  and  flung  a  pall  of 
darkness  over  all  the  beauties  of  the  earth  and  the  glories 
of  the  firmament.  So,  if  a  usurper  of  human  rights 
takes  away  from  a  child  the  faculties  of  knowledge,  or 
the  means  and  opportunities  to  know,  it  is  precisely 
the  same  to  that  child  as  though  all  the  beauties  and 
the  wonders,  all  the  magnificence  and  the  glory,  of  the 
universe  itself  had  been  destroyed.  To  one  who  is 
permitted  to  know  nothing  of  the  charms  and  sublim 
ities  of  science,  all  science  is  non-existent.  To  one 
who  is  permitted  to  know  nothing  of  the  historical 
past,  all  the  past  generations  of  men  are  a  nonentity. 
To  one  whose  mind  is  not  made  capacious  of  the 
future,  and  opened  to  receive  it,  all  the  great  interests 
of  futurity  have  less  of  reality  than  a  dream.  I  say, 
therefore,  in  strict,  literal,  philosophical  truth,  that 
whoever  denies  knowledge  to  children  works  devilish 
miracles.  Just  so  far  as  he  disables  and  incapacitates 
them  from  knowing,  he  annihilates  the  objects  of 
knowledge  ;  he  obliterates  history  ;  he  destroys  the 
countless  materials  in  the  natural  world  that  might, 
through  the  medium  of  the  useful  arts,  be  converted 
into  human  comforts  and  blessings  ;  he  suspends  the 
sublime  order  and  progression  of  Nature,  and  blots  out 
those  wonderful  relations  of  cause  and  effect  that 
belong  to  her  unchangeable  laws.  Nay,  there  is  a 
sense  in  whicii  such  an  impious  destroyer  of  knowl 
edge  may  be  said  to  annihilate  the  attributes  of  the 


148 

Creator  himself,  for  he  does  annihilate  the  capacity  of 
forming  a  conception  of  that  Creator,  and  thus  pre 
vents  a  soul  that  was  created  in  the  image  of  God 
from  ever  receiving  the  image  it  was  created  to 
reflect.  Such  a  destroyer  of  knowledge  dims  the 
highest  moral  splendor  of  the  universe.  God  is  more 
to  me  than  a  grand  and  solitary  Being,  though  reful 
gent  with  infinite  perfections.  Contemplated  as  en 
throned  in  the  midst  of  his  works,  his  spiritual  off 
spring  in  all  the  grand  circuit  of  the  worlds  he  has 
formed  become  a  multiplying  glass,  reflecting  back 
the  Original  in  the  profusion  and  countlessness  of 
infinity.  But  when  the  wickedness  of  man  cuts  off 
entire  generations  and  whole  races  from  the  capacity 
of  reflecting  back  this  radiant  image  of  the  Creator, 
then  all  that  part  of  the  universe  where  they  dwell 
becomes  black  and  revolting,  and  all  that  portion  of 
the  Mirror  of  Souls  which  was  designed  to  reproduce 
and  rekindle  the  glories  of  the  Eternal  absorbs  and 
quenches  the  rays  which  it  should  have  caught  and 
flamed  with  anew,  and  multiplied  and  returned.  And 
still  further,  sir,  I  affirm,  in  words  as  true  and  literal 
as  any  that  belong  to  geometry,  that  the  man  Avho 
withholds  knowledge  from  a  child  not  only  works 
diabolical  miracles  for  the  destruction  of  good,  but  for 
the  creation  of  evil  also.  He  who  shuts  out  truth,  by 
the  same  act  opens  the  door  to  all  the  error  that  sup 
plies  its  place.  Ignorance  breeds  monsters  to  fill  up 
all  the  vacuities  of  the  soul  that  are  unoccupied  by  the 
verities  of  knowledge.  He  who  dethrones  the  idea 
of  law,  bids  chaos  welcome  in  its  stead.  Superstition 
is  the  mathematical  complement  of  religious  truth  ; 
and  just  so  much  less  as  the  life  of  a  human  being  is 
reclaimed  to  good,  just  so  much  more  is  it  delivered 
over  to  evil.  The  man  or  the  institution,  therefore, 
that  withholds  knowledge  from  a  child,  or  from  a  race 
of  children,  exercises  the  awful  power  of  changing  the 


149 

world  in  which  they  are  to  live,  just  as  much  as 
though  he  should  annihilate  all  that  is  most  lovely  and 
grand  in  this  planet  of  ours,  or  transport  the  victim  of 
his  cruelty  to  some  dark  and  frigid  zone  of  the  uni 
verse,  where  the  sweets  of  knowledge  are  unknown, 
and  the  terrors  of  ignorance  hold  their  undisputed 
and  remorseless  reign.  Sir,  the  laws  recorded  in  the 
statute  books  of  the  free  states,  providing  the  means 
of  education,  and  wooing  the  children  to  receive  the 
blessedness  of  true  knowledge,  are  worthy  to  be  in 
scribed  as  emblems  and  hieroglyphics  upon  the  golden 
gates  of  heaven  ;  but  those  laws  which  deform  the 
statute  books  of  the  slave  states  of  this  Union,  making 
it  a  penal  offence  to  educate  human  beings,  and  doom 
ing  immortal  souls  to  perpetual  ignorance,  would  make 
the  most  appropriate  adornment  wherewith  to  embel 
lish  with  inscription  and  bas-relief  the  pillars  of  the 
council  hall  of  Pandemonium. 

Sir,  if  there  is  any  thing  for  which  I  would  go  back 
to  childhood,  and  live  this  weary  life  over  again,  it  is 
for  the  burning,  exalting,  transporting  thrill  and  ec 
stasy  with  which  the  young  faculties  hold  their  earliest 
communion  with  knowledge.  When  the  panting  and 
thirsting  soul  first  drinks  the  delicious  waters  of  truth  ; 
when  the  moral  and  intellectual  tastes  and  desires  first 
seize  the  fragrant  fruits  that  flourish  in  the  garden  of 
knowledge  ;  then  does  the  child  catch  a  glimpse  and 
foretaste  of  heaven.  He  regales  himself  upon  the 
nectar  and  ambrosia  of  the  gods.  Late  in  life,  this 
zest  is  rarely  if  ever  felt  so  keenly  as  at  the  beginning. 
Such  ought  not  to  be  the  fact  ;  but  our  bodies  are  so 
systematically  abused  by  transgressions  of  the  laws  of 
health  and  diet,  that  the  sympathizing  soul  loses  the 
keenness  of  its  early  relish.  Even  then,  however,  age 
has  its  compensations.  The  old  may  experience  the 
delights  of  learning,  anew,  in  the  reflex  pleasure  of 
seeing  children  learn.  But  these  lofty  and  enduring 
13* 


150 

satisfactions,  —  this  pleasure,  —  it  is  no  extravagance  to 
say,  this  bliss  of  knowledge,  both  for  parent  and  child, 
is  withheld,  cruelly,  remorselessly  withheld,  from  the 
slave.  We  know  all  this  ;  we  see  its  imbruting  con 
sequences  ;  and  we  are  compelled  to  see  them,  be 
cause  the  government  will  uphold  slavery  here. 

Such,  sir,  is  the  spectacle  which  is  presented  to  all 
northern  men,  whenever  for  duty,  for  business,  or  for 
pleasure,  they  visit  this  metropolis.  Wherever  we  go, 
wherever  we  are,  the  odious,  abhorred  concomitants 
of  this  institution  are  forced  upon  our  observation,  and 
become  a  perpetual  bitterness  in  the  cup  of  life.  The 
whole  system,  with  all  its  adjuncts,  is  irreconcilably 
repugnant  to  our  ideas  of  justice.  We  believe  it  to  be 
a  denial  of  the  rights  of  man  ;  we  believe  it  to  be 
contrary  to  the  law  of  God.  Whether  these  feelings 
wear  away  by  the  lapse  of  time,  and  the  indurating 
power  of  custom,  I  know  not  ;  but,  for  one,  I  hope 
never  to  become  hardened  and  callous  to  the  sight  ; 
for  it  is  a  case  where  I  could  experience  no  mitigation 
of  my  pains,  without  a  corresponding  debasement  of 
my  nature. 

Now,  in  all  sincerity,  and  in  all  kindness,  I  ask  our 
southern  brethren  what  there  is  to  them  so  valuable 
and  desirable  in  retaining  slavery  here,  as  to  be  a  com 
pensation  for  all  the  pain  and  evil  which  its  existence 
inflicts  upon  the  north  ?  Surely  its  abandonment  here 
would  be  a  small  thing  to  them,  while  its  continuance 
is  a  great  thing  to  us.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  us,  be 
cause  we  are  held  responsible  for  it  by  the  whole  civil 
ized  world.  This  District  is  the  common  possession 
of  the  nation.  Congress  has  power  of  exclusive  legis 
lation  over  it.  Congress,  therefore,  is  responsible  for 
its  institutions,  as  a  man  is  responsible  for  the  condi 
tion  of  his  house,  and  the  customs  of  his  family.  The 
general  government  is  not  responsible  for  the  local 
institutions  of  Massachusetts  or  of  Mississippi.  Each 


151 

of  them  has  supreme  control  over  its  own  domestic 
concerns.  They  may  honorably  discharge  their  debts 
or  repudiate  them  ;  they  may  build  up  institutions  of 
charity,  of  learning,  and  of  religion  ;  or  they  may 
suffer  inhumanity  and  violence,  ignorance  and  pagan 
ism,  to  prevail  ;  and  we,  here,  cannot  help  it,  and 
therefore  are  not  responsible  for  it.  But  it  is  wholly 
otherwise  with  regard  to  the  institutions  that  prevail 
in  this  District  ;  their  honor,  or  their  infamy,  attaches 
to  us.  We  are  judged  by  them  the  world  round.  We 
of  the  Northern  States  feel  it  at  home  ;  we  are  made  to 
feel  it  still  more  deeply  abroad.  Throughout  every 
nation  in  Europe,  it  is  the  common  language  and  the 
common  sentiment,  that  an  institution  which  exists  in 
one  half  of  the  states  of  this  Union  is  in  flagrant  con 
trast  and  contradiction  to  the  theory  of  our  govern 
ment.  When  we  are  reminded  of  this,  —  whether  in 
a  kindly  and  expostulatory  manner  by  our  friends,  or 
in  an  offensive  and  taunting  one  by  our  enemies,  — 
we  of  the  north  can  say,  at  least,  that  we  are  not 
responsible  for  it.  We  can  explain  why  we  are  no 
more  amenable  for  the  local  laws  of  Arkansas  or  Mis 
souri  than  we  are  for  the  Catholic  religion  in  Mexico, 
or  for  the  revolutions  in  the  South  American  republics. 
This  is  our  answer.  But  they  still  retort  upon  us,  and 
say,  There  is  one  spot  for  which  you  are  responsible, 
—  the  District  of  Columbia.  You  could  abolish  sla 
very  there  if  you  would  ;  you  do  not ;  and  therefore 
the  sin  of  its  continuance  is  yours,  as  much  as  if  it 
existed  in  New  York  or  Massachusetts.  Now  I  ask 
southern  gentlemen  how  it  is  consistent  with  magna 
nimity  and  honor,  with  a  fraternal  feeling  towards  the 
north,  for  them  to  force  the  odium  of  this  inconsist 
ency  upon  us  ?  Surely  they  gain  no  credit,  no  char 
acter  by  it  ;  we  lose  both  credit  and  character.  The 
existence  of  slavery  here  is  no  benefit  to  them  ;  it  is 
of  unspeakable  injury  to  us.  They  would  lose  noth- 


152 

ing  by  surrendering  it ;  we  suffer  every  thing  by  its 
continuance.  A  change  would  work  them  no  injury  ; 
it  would  be  invaluable  to  us.  I  ask  them,  on  principles 
of  common  fairness  and  good  neighborhood,  that  they 
should  courteously  and  voluntarily  yield  us  this  point, 
which  would  allay  so  much  bitterness  and  heart-burn 
ing  at  the  north,  and  which,  according  to  their  view 
of  the  matter,  would  fill  the  south  with  the  sweet 
savor  of  a  generous  deed. 

I  know,  sir,  that  some  southern  gentleman  profess 
to  see  a  principle  in  such  a  course  that  debars  them 
from  adopting  it.  They  say  that  if  slavery  in  this 
District  should  be  surrendered,  it  would  only  be  giving 
the  adversary  a  vantage  ground,  on  which  he  could 
plant  himself  to  attack  slavery  in  the  states.  I  dissent 
from  this  view  entirely.  Has  not  the  gentleman  from 
Ohio,  [Mr.  GIDDINGS,]  who  is  supposed  to  represent 
the  extreme  anti-slavery  views  which  exist  in  this 
House,  —  has  he  not  declared  here,  a  hundred  times 
over,  that  he  disclaims  all  right,  that  he  renounces  all 
legal  authority  and  pretext,  under  the  constitution,  to 
lay  the  hands  of  this  government,  for  the  purpose  of 
freeing  him,  on  a  single  slave  in  the  slave  states  ?  But 
clearly  the  principle  is  different  in  regard  to  slaves  in 
this  District,  where  we  possess  the  power  of  "exclusive 
legislation."  But  if  gentlemen  at  the  south  see  a 
principle  which  debars  them  from  surrendering  slavery 
in  this  District,  we  at  the  north  see  a  principle  which 
prompts  us,  and  will  prompt  us,  until  the  work  is 
accomplished,  to  renewed  exertions.  On  the  same 
ground  on  which  slavery  in  this  District  has  been 
defended  for  the  last  fifty  years,  it  can  be  defended  for 
the  next  fifty,  or  the  next  five  hundred  years  ;  it  can 
be  defended  forever.  This  idea  of  perpetual  slavery 
in  the  very  household  of  a  republic  of  freemen  is  not 
to  be  tolerated,  and  cannot  be  tolerated.  But  I  will 
not  dwell  on  this  topic  further.  I  close  this  branch 


153 

of  my  argument  with  a  proposition  which  seems  to 
me  but  fair  and  equitable.  The  south  has  held  this 
metropolis  as  a  slave  capital  for  fifty  years.  Let  it  now 
be  held  as  a  free  capital  for  fifty  years  ;  and  if,  at  the 
end  of  this  period,  adequate  reasons  can  be  shown,  be 
fore  any  nation,  civilized  or  uncivilized,  upon  the  face 
of  the  earth,  for  restoring  it  to  slavery  again,  I,  for  one, 
should  have  no  fears  of  entering  into  an  engagement 
upon  such  a  condition,  that  it  should  again  become  "a 
land  of  Egypt  and  a  house  of  bondage." 

Notwithstanding  I  have  dwelt  so  long  upon  the  so 
cial  and  moral  aspects  of  this  subject,  I  am  still  tempted 
not  to  forego  that  which  was  my  principal  object  in 
using,  namely,  to  submit  an  argument  on  the  question 
of  the  legality  or  constitutionality  of  slavery  in  this 
District.  I  have  bestowed  much  careful  attention  upon 
this  subject,  with  the  sincerest  desire  of  arriving  at 
true,  legal,  and  constitutional  results.  I  submit  my 
views  with  deference,  because  I  know  they  are  in  con 
flict  with  the  views  of  others,  for  whose  knowledge 
and  abilities  I  have  a  profound  respect. 

The  legality  of  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
has  been  assumed,  and  practically  acquiesced  in,  for 
fifty  years.  Had  the  question  of  its  validity  been 
raised,  and  argued  on  the  principles  of  the  constitu 
tion,  immediately  after  the  creation  of  the  District,  I 
believe  this  territory  would  have  been  declared  free 
soil.  In  my  conscientious  opinion,  slavery  exists  in 
this  District  only  by  original  usurpation  and  subse 
quent  acquiescence.  If  so,  Congress  cannot  be  too 
speedily  invoked  to  abdicate  the  power  it  has  usurped. 

1.  The  first  position  I  take  is  this  :  That  slavery  has 
no  legal  existence  any  where,  unless  by  force  of  positive 
law. 

If  any  man  claims  authority  over  the  body,  mind, 
and  soul  of  one  of  his  fellow-men,  and  claims  this 


154 

authority  not  only  for  the  whole  life  of  his  victim,  but  a 
like  authority  over  all  his  descendants,  there  is  no  part 
of  the  civilized  world  where  he  will  not  be  required  to 
show  some  positive  law,  authorizing  the  power  and  the 
bondage.  If  the  claimant  says,  "  I  am  stronger,  or  I 
am  wiser  than  he  ;  "  or,  "  I  have  an  Anglo-Saxon  brain, 
while  he  has  only  an  African  brain  ;  "  or,  '•  my  skin  is 
white,  and  his  skin  is  not  white  ;  "  or,  "  I  descended 
from  Shem,  and  he  from  Ham  ;  and,  therefore,  he  is  my 
slave," — -there  is  not  a  court  in  Christendom,  which, 
though  it  may  admit  the  fact,  will  ratify  the  inference. 
If  the  claimant  affirms  that  it  is  morally  right  for  him 
to  seize  his  fellow-man  and  reduce  him  to  slavery  ;  if 
he  brings  the  Bible  into  court  as  his  law  book,  and  cites 
Abraham  and  Isaac,  and  Jacob  and  Paul,  as  his  author 
ities  ;  still,  I  say,  there  is  not  a  court  in  Christendom 
that  will  not  deny  the  validity  of  the  title,  and  rebuke 
the  arrogance  of  the  demand.*  Positive  law,  then,  is 
the  only  foundation  of  slavery.  The  authorities  are 
numerous,  if  not  numberless,  to  establish  this  position. 
I  shall  not  encumber  this  argument  by  citing  many  of 
them.  The  few  which  I  shall  cite  will  contain  a  refer 
ence  to  the  rest. 

The  grand  reason  against  slavery  given  by  Lord 
Mansfield,  in  Somerset's  case,  was,  "  that  it  is  so  in 
trinsically  wrong  that  it  is  incapable  of  being  introduced 


*  An  anecdote,  which  I  have  on  the  best  authority,  is  not  inappro 
priate.  A  few  years  ago,  a  citizen  of  the  State  of  Connecticut  ab 
sconded,  leaving  a  wiie'behind  him.  He  went  to  the  State  of  Missis 
sippi,  where  he  took  a  colored  woman  as  his  concubine,  had  children 
by  her,  acquired  property,  and  died.  The  wife  and  heirs  in  Connec 
ticut  claimed  the  property  acquired  in  Mississippi.  The  claim  was 
contested.  The  honorable  HENRY  S.  POOTE,  now  a  senator  from  that 
state,  conducted  the  defence.  He  denied  the  title  of  the  wife  in  Con 
necticut,  affirmed  that  of  the  concubine  and  her  children  in  Missis 
sippi,  and  cited  the  case  of  Abraham  and  Sarah  and  Hagar,  to  prove 
the  legality  and  the  propriety  of  the  concubinage,  and  the  divine  au 
thority  for  it.  And  surely,  if  the  Bible  argument  in  favor  of  slavery 
is  sound,  Mr.  FOOTE'S  argument  in  favor  of  concubinage  is  equally  so. 


155 

into  any  country,  on  any  reasons  moral  or  political,  and 
can  only  stand  on  positive  law.     20  State  Trials,  1. 

Chief  Justice  Marshall  says,  "  That  it  [slavery]  is  con 
trary  to  the  law  of  nature,  will  scarcely  be  denied. 
That  every  man  has  a  natural  right  to  the  fruits  of  his 
own  labor,  is  generally  admitted ;  and  that  no  other 
person  can  rightfully  deprive  him  of  those  fruits  and 
appropriate  them  against  his  will,  seems  to  be  the 
necessary  result  of  this  admission."  Antelope,  10 
Wheat.,  120. 

"  The  first  objection,"  says  Mr.  Justice  Best,  in  the 
case  of  Forbes  and  Cochrane,  "  which  occurs  to  me,  in 
this  case,  is  that  it  does  not  appear,  in  the  special  case, 
that  the  right  to  slaves  exists  in  East  Florida.  That 
right  is  not  a  general  but  a  local  right ;  it  ought,  there 
fore,  to  have  been  shown  that  it  existed  in  Florida,  and 
that  the  defendants  knew  of  its  existence.  Assuming, 
however,  that  those  facts  did  appear,  still,  under  the 
circumstances  of  this  case,  this  action  could  not  be 
maintained. 

"  The  question  is,  Were  these  persons  slaves  at  the 
time  when  Sir  G.  Cockburn  refused  to  do  the  act  which 
he  was  desired  to  do?  I  am  decidedly  of  opinion  that 
they  were  no  longer  slaves.  The  moment  they  put 
their  feet  on  board  of  a  British  man-of-war,  not  lying 
within  the  waters  of  East  Florida,  (where  undoubtedly 
the  laws  of  that  country  would  prevail,)  those  persons 

who  had  before  been  slaves  were  free 

Slavery  is  a  local  law,  and,  therefore,  if  a  man  wishes 
to  preserve  his  slaves,  let  him  attach  them  to  him  by 
affection,  or  make  fast  the  bars  of  their  prison,  or  rivet 
well  their  chains ;  for  the  instant  they  get  beyond  the 
limits  where  slavery  is  recognized  by  the  local  law, 
they  have  broken  their  chains,  they  have  escaped  from 
their  prison,  and  are  free"  2  Barn.  &  Ores.  466-7; 
Forbes  vs.  Cochrane,  S.  C.,  3  Dowl.  &  Ryland,  679. 

"I  am  of  opinion,"  says  Holroyd,  J.,  in  the  same 


156 

case,  "  that  according  to  the  principles  of  the  English 
law  the  right  to  slaves,  even  in  a  country  where  such 
rights  are  recognized  by  law,  must  be  considered  as 
founded,  not  upon  the  law  of  nature,  but  upon  the 
particular  law  of  that  country." 

"  The  law  of  slavery  is  a  law  in  invitum  ;  and  when 
a  party  gets  out  of  the  territory  where  it  prevails,  and 
out  of  the  power  of  his  master,  and  gets  under  the  pro 
tection  of  another  power,  without  any  wrongful  act 
done  by  the  party  giving  that  protection,  the  right  of 
the  master,  which  is  founded  on  the  municipal  law  of 
the  particular  place  only,  does  not  continue,  and  there 
is  no  right  of  action  against  a  party  who  merely  re 
ceives  the  slave  in  that  country,  without  doing  any 
wrongful  act." 

The  definition  of  slavery  given  by  the  Roman  law- 
implies  that  it  is  local  :  Servitus  est  constitutio  juris 
gentium,  qua  quis  dominio  alieno,  CONTRA  NATURAM, 
subjicitur.  Commonwealth  vs.  Aves,  18  Pick.  Rep.. 
193  ;  Lunsford  vs.  Coquillon,  14  Martin's  Rep.  402. 
"  The  relation  of  owner  and  slave  is  a  creation  of  the 
municipal  law."  Rankin  vs.  Lydia,  3  Marshall,  470, 
Ky.  ;  Butler  vs.  Hopper,  1  Wash.  C.  C.  Rep.  499  ; 
Ex  parts  Simmons,  4  Wash.  C.  C.  296  ;  Marie  Louise 
vs.  Marot  et  al.,  9  Curry's  Louisiana  Rep.  473. 

This  point  may  be  presented  in  another  light.  By 
the  law  of  nature  all  men  are  free.  But  in  some  gov 
ernments  the  law  of  the  state,  upheld  by  the  power  of 
the  state,  overrides  the  law  of  nature,  and  enslaves  a 
portion  of  the  people.  The  law  of  nature  recedes  be 
fore  this  legalized  violence  ;  but  it  recedes  no  farther 
than  the  legalized  violence  drives  it  back.  Within  the 
jurisdictional  limits  of  such  states,  then,  slavery  is  made 
legal,  though  it  is  not  made  right.  But  if  a  slave 
passes  out  of  the  jurisdiction  where  violence  overpowers 
right,  into  a  jurisdiction  where  right  is  superior  to  vio 
lence,  he  is  then  free ;  not  because  there  is  any  change 


157 

in  the  man,  but  because  there  is  a  change  in  the  laws 
to  which  the  man  is  subject. 

There  may,  however,  be  some  further  positive  law 
which,  though  it  does  not  authorize  the  buying  or  sell 
ing  of  a  slave,  still  does  provide  that  an  escaped  or  es 
caping  slave  may  be  recaptured  and  redelivered  into 
bondage.  Such  is  the  third  paragraph  of  the  second 
section  of  the  fourth  article  of  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States.  Such,  too,  is  the  act  of  Congress  of 
February  12,  1793,  providing  for  the  recapture  of  fugi 
tive  slaves.  This,  however,  would  not  be  without 
positive  law. 

The  debates  in  all  the  conventions  for  adopting  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States,  proceed  upon  the 
ground  that  slavery  depends  upon  positive  law  for  its 
existence.  If  it  did  not,  —  if  a  man  who  has  a  legal 
right  to  a  slave  in  Virginia,  has  a  legal  right  to  him  any 
where,  —  then  the  provision  in  the  constitution,  and  the 
act  of  1793  for  recapturing  fugitive  slaves,  would  have 
been  unnecessary. 

On  the  south  side  of  a  boundary  line,  then,  slavery 
may  exist  by  force  of  positive  law  ;  while,  on  the  north 
side,  in  the  absence  of  any  such  law,  slavery  is  unlaw 
ful.  A  slave  passing  out  of  a  jurisdiction  where  slavery 
is  legalized,  into  a  jurisdiction  where  it  is  not,  becomes 
free.  It  is  as  though  a  man  should  migrate  from  one 
of  those  South  Sea  islands,  where  cannibalism  is  legal 
ized,  and  where  the  public  authorities,  according  to  the 
reports  of  travellers,  not  only  condemn  and  execute  a 
criminal,  but  dine  on  him,  after  he  is  executed,  —  it  is, 
I  say,  as  though  the  subject  of  such  a  government 
should  migrate  into  one  where  cannibalism  is  not  law 
ful,  and  where,  therefore,  though  he  should  be  con 
demned  and  executed  for  crime,  it  would  be  no  part  of 
the  sentence  or  the  ceremony  that  he  should  be  eaten 
by  his  judges.  He  is  out  of  cannibal  jurisdiction. 

The  right  of  freedom  is  a  natural  right.  It  is  a  pos- 
14 


158 

itive  existence.  It  is  a  moral  entity.  Like  the  right 
to  life,  it  pertains,  by  the  law  of  nature  and  of  God,  to 
every  human  being.  This  moral  right  continues  to 
exist  until  it  is  abolished.  Some  act  abolishing  this 
freedom,  then,  must  be  proved  ;  it  must  be  proved  af 
firmatively,  or  else  the  fact  of  freedom  remains.  This 
is  the  solid  and  indestructible  ground  of  the  maxim, 
that  slavery  can  exist  only  by  positive  law  j  that  it  is  a 
local,  institution  ;  that  the  right  of  freedom  must  first 
be  abolished  before  slavery  can  exist. 

2.  My  second  position  is  this  :  That  a  man's  legal 
condition  may  be  changed  by  a  change  in  the  govern 
ment  over  him,  while  he  remains  in  the  same  place, 
just  as  effectually  as  it  can  be  changed  by  his  removal 
to  another  place,  and  putting  himself  under  another 
government.  The  inhabitants  of  the  North  American 
colonies  did  not  change  their  place  of  residence  when 
they  passed  from  under  the  government  of  Great  Brit 
ain,  and  came  under  the  government  of  the  confede 
ration.  The  Mexicans,  inhabiting  the  then  states  of 
California  and  New  Mexico,  did  not  change  their  place 
of  residence,  when,  on  the  thirtieth  day  of  May  last, 
they  ceased  to  be  citizens  of  the  Mexican  republic,  and 
became  citizens,  or  quasi  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
Their  political  relations  were  changed,  not  by  their 
removal  from  under  the  canopy  of  one  government  and 
placing  themselves  under  the  canopy  of  another  govern 
ment,  but  by  the  withdrawal  of  one  government  from 
over  them,  and  by  the  extension  to  them  of  certain  po 
litical  rights  and  capacities  under  another  government. 
Before  this  thirtieth  day  of  May,  they  could  have  com 
mitted  treason  against  Mexico,  but  not  after  it.  Before 
it,  they  could  not  commit  treason  against  the  United 
States ;  but  when  they  shall  be  citizens  of  the  Union, 
they  can.  These  vital  changes  in  their  relations  are 
without  any  change  in  their  residence.  Within  my 
recollection,  an  old  gentleman  died  in  Massachusetts, 


i.V.) 

who  had  lived  in  five  different  towns,  but  still  remained 
where  he  was  born,  like  one  of  the  old  oak  trees  on 
the  homestead.  The  part  of  the  original  town  where 
he  was  born  had  been  set  off  and  incorporated  into  a 
new  town  ;  and  that  part  of  the  second  town  where  he 
lived,  into  a  third  ;  and  so  on,  until  he  died  in  the  fifth 
town  without  any  change  of  domicile.  Now,  this  man 
lived  under  the  jurisdiction  and  by-laws  of  five  towns, 
as  they  were  successively  incorporated  over  him,  just 
as  much  as  though  he  had  struck  his  tent  five  times, 
and  placed  himself,  by  successive  migrations,  under  five 
different  municipal  jurisdictions. 

A  similar  thing  must  have  happened  to  thousands  of 
our  fellow-citizens  of  the  Union.  Some  of  them  at 
first  lived  under  a  foreign  government ;  then  under  one 
territorial  government ;  then  under  another;  and  at  last 
have  become  citizens  of  a  state,  without  any  change 
of  domicile.  Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  nothing  can 
be  clearer  than  the  proposition,  whether  regarded  as  a 
legal  or  a  political  one,  that  the  laws  and  the  juris 
diction  may  be  changed  over  a  man  who  continues 
to  reside  in  the  same  place,  just  as  effectually  and  as 
completely  as  a  man  may  change  the  laws  and  juris 
diction  over  himself  by  removing  to  a  different  place. 
In  many  cases,  the  former  works  a  more  thorough 
change  than  the  latter.  The  laws  of  Great  Britain  do 
not  acknowledge  the  right  of  self-expatriation  ;  while, 
at  the  same  time,  it  is  held,  that  the  inhabitants  of  a 
foreign  province,  incorporated  into  the  kingdom,  change 
their  allegiance  without  changing  their  residence. 

3.  My  third  proposition  is  this:  That  the  jurisdic 
tion  under  which  the  inhabitants  of  what  is  now  the 
District  of  Columbia  lived,  prior  to  the  cession  of  the 
District  by  Maryland  to  the  United  States,  was  utterly 
and  totally  changed,  at  the  moment  of  the  cession, — 
at  the  moment  when,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the 
constitution,  they  ceased  to  be  citizens  of  the  state  of 


160 

Maryland,  and  became  citizens  of  the  District  of 
Columbia. 

By  the  17th  paragraph,  (Mickey's  Constitution,)  of 
the  8th  section  of  the  1st  article,  it  is  provided  that 
Congress  shall  have  power  "  to  exercise  exclusive  legis 
lation  in  all  cases  whatsoever  over  such  District,  (not 
exceeding  ten  miles  square,)  as  may,  by  cession  of  par 
ticular  states,  and  the  acceptance  of  Congress,  become 
the  seat  of  the  government  of  the  United  States." 

Congress,  then,  has  the  power  of  sole  arid  exclusive 
legislation,  "  in  all  cases  whatsoever,"  in  regard  to  the 
District  of  Columbia.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the 
word  "  exclusive  "  in  this  connection  ?  It  cannot 
mean  absolute  and  uncontrolled  ;  for,  if  it  did,  it  would 
make  Congress  as  sovereign  as  the  Russian  autocrat. 
It  means  that  no  other  government,  no  other  body  of 
men  whatever,  shall  have  concurrent  power  of  legis 
lation  over  the  District ;  nor,  indeed,  any  subordinate 
power,  except  what  may  be  derived  from  Congress. 
Over  every  man  who  is  a  citizen  of  one  of  the  United 
States,  there  are  two  jurisdictions,  —  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  general  government,  and  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  state  government.  There  are  two  governments 
that  have  the  power  to  legislate  for  him  ;  but  there  is 
only  one  power,  —  the  Congress  of  the  United  States, 
—  that  can  legislate  for  a  citizen  of  the  District  of 
Columbia. 

In  Kendall  vs.  The  United  States,  12  Peters,  524,  it 
is  said,  "  There  is  in  the  District  of  Columbia  no 
division  of  powers  between  the  general  and  state  gov 
ernments.  Congress  has  the  entire  control  over  the 
District,  for  every  purpose  of  government." 

So  it  has  been  held  that  a  justice  of  the  peace  in 
the  District  of  Columbia  is  an  officer  of  the  govern 
ment  of  the  United  States,  and  is  therefore  exempt 
from  militia  duty.  Wise  vs.  Withers,  3  Cranch,  331  ; 
1  Cond.  Rep.  552. 


161 

A  citizen  of  the  District  of  Columbia  is  not  a  citizen 
of  any  one  of  the  United  States.  Hebpurn  ct  al.  vs. 
EUcry,  2  Crunch,  445  ;  WcslcotVs  Lessee  vs.  Inhabit- 
ants ,  Peters,  C.  C.  R.  45. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  cession,  the  inhabitants  of  this 
District  were  under  two  jurisdictions — that  of  Mary 
land  and  that  of  Congress  ;  but  after  the  cession,  un 
der  that  of  Congress  alone.  Now,  when  the  inhabit 
ants  of  this  District  passed  out  of  the  jurisdiction  of 
Maryland,  and  came  under  the  exclusive  jurisdiction 
of  Congress,  let  us  see  what  was  the  effect  of  such 
change  of  jurisdiction  upon  them. 

In  the  act  of  Congress  of  1790,  c.  28,  sect.  1,  which 
was  an  act  for  establishing  the  seat  of  government  of 
the  United  States,  there  is  the  following  clause  :  "  Pro 
vided,  nevertheless,  That  the  operation  of  the  laws  of 
the  state  [of  Maryland]  within  such  District  shall  not 
be  affected  by  this  acceptance,  until  the  time  fixed  for 
the  removal  of  the  government  thereto,  and  until  Con 
gress  shall  otherwise  by  law  provide." 

Here,  then,  Congress  expressly  provided  and  con 
tracted  with  the  state  of  Maryland,  that  the  laws  of 
Maryland  in  this  District  should  not  be  interfered  with 
until  the  removal  of  the  seat  of  government  to  this 
place  ;  and  Congress  likewise  impliedly  provided  and 
contracted,  that  when  the  seat  of  government  should 
be  removed  to  this  place,  it  would  discharge  the  duty 
imposed  upon  it  by  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  would  assume  and  exercise  the  "  exclusive 
legislation"  provided  for  in  that  instrument.  This 
act  of  Congress  was  approved  on  the  16th  of  July, 
1790. 

By  the  Maryland  laws  of  1791,  c.  45,  sect.  2,  that 
state  ceded  to  the  United  States  the  territory  which 
now  constitutes  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  the 
words  of  the  cession  are  these  :  "  In  full  and  absolute 
right,  as  well  of  soil  as  of  person,  residing  or  to  reside 
14* 


162 

thereon,"  &c.  .  .  .  provided  that  the  jurisdiction 
of  the  laws  of  Maryland  "shall  riot  cease  or  determine 
until  Congress  shall  by  law  provide  for  the  govern 
ment  thereof" 

The  state  of  the  case,  then,  was  simply  this  :  1.  The 
constitution  gave  Congress  power  of  "  exclusive  legis 
lation  "  over  such  district  as  might  be  ceded  for  the 
seat  of  government.  2.  Congress,  by  the  act  of  1790, 
above  referred  to,  proposed  to  the  state  of  Maryland  to 
accept  a  portion  of  her  territory  for  this  purpose,  but 
engaged  not  to  interfere  with  her  laws  until  after  it 
had  taken  actual  possession  of  the  ceded  territory. 
3.  Maryland  accepted  the  proposition,  rehearsing  the 
condition  in  these  words;  namely,  that  "the  laws  of 
Maryland  shall  not  cease  or  determine  until  Congress 
shall  by  law  provide  for  the  government  thereof." 

By  the  6th  section  of  the  act  of  1790,  c.  28,  Con 
gress  provided  that  it  would  remove  to  this  District, 
and  make  this  the  seat  of  government,  on  the  first 
Monday  of  December,  1800.  It  did  so  ;  and  now  its 
express  duty  under  the  constitution,  and  its  implied 
promise  to  the  state  of  Maryland,  were  to  be  fulfilled, 
by  exercising  "exclusive  legislation"  over  this  Dis 
trict. 

In  fulfilment  of  this  duty  and  promise,  Congress,  on 
the  27th  of  February,  1801,  by  the  act  of  1801,  c.  15, 
proceeded  to  legislate  for  the  District  of  Columbia  ; 
and,  in  the  first  section  of  that  act,  it  provided  as  fol 
lows  :  — 

"  Be  it  enacted,  (J-c.,  That  the  laws  of  the  state  of  Virginia, 
as  they  now  exist,  shall  be  and  continue  in  force  in  that  part 
of  the  District  of  Columbia  which  was  ceded  by  the  said 
state  to  the  United  States,  and  by  them  accepted  for  the  per 
manent  seat  of  government ;  and  that  the  laws  of  the  state 
of  Maryland,  as  they  now  exist,  shall  be  and  continue  in 
force  in  that  part  of  the  said  District  which  was  ceded  by  that 
state  to  the  United  States,  and  by  them  accepted,  as  afore 
said." 


163 

By  this  act,  then,  Congress  assumed  to  exercise,  and 
did  exercise,  that  exclusive  legislation  over  the  District 
of  Columbia  which  had  been  provided  for  by  the  con 
stitution. 

That  portion  of  the  District  which  was  ceded  to 
Congress  by  Virginia,  having  been  receded  to  that  state 
by  the  act  of  Congress  of  July  9,  1846,  (stat.  1846, 
c.  35,)  all  that  relates  to  it  may,  for  the  purposes  of 
this  argument,  be  laid  out  of  the  question. 

On  the  27th  day  of  February,  1801,  then,  the  laws 
of  Maryland,  as  such,  were  abrogated  in  this  District. 
The  legislative  power  of  Congress  was  de  facto  exclu 
sive.  All  legislative  power  previously  possessed  by 
Maryland  over  it.  then  ceased.  The  connection  of  Mary 
land  with  this  District,  as  a  part  of  its  former  territory, 
and  occupied  by  its  former  citizens,  was  dissolved.  It 
had  no  longer  any  more  legislative  power  over  the  Dis 
trict  than  Maine  or  Georgia  had.  Historically,  we  may 
talk  about  the  laws  of  Maryland,  as  they  once  existed 
here  ;  but  practically,  and  as  a  matter  of  strict  law  and 
fact,  her  laws  were  no  longer  known  within  the  Dis 
trict.  The  laws  which  governed  the  people  of  this 
District  after  the  27th  day  of  February;  1801,  were  the 
laws  of  Congress,  and  not  the  laws  of  Maryland. 

To  show  that  this  part  of  the  District  passed  out 
from  under  the  government  of  Maryland,  and  came 
under  the  government  of  the  United  States,  I  refer  to 
Reilly,  appellant,  vs.  Lamar  ct  al.,  2  Cranch,  344  ;  1 
Cond.  Rep.  322,  where  it  is  said,  "  By  the  separation 
of  the  District  of  Columbia  from  the  State  of  Mary 
land,  the  residents  in  that  part  of  Maryland  which 
became  a  part  of  the  District,  ceased  to  be  citizens  of 
the  state."  It  was  held,  in  that  case,  that  a  citizen  of 
the  District  of  Columbia  could  not  be  discharged  by 
the  insolvent  law  of  Maryland. 

A  citizen  of  the  District  of  Columbia  cannot  main 
tain  an  action  in  the  circuit  court  of  the  United  States 


164 

out  of  the  District,  he  not  being  a  citizen  of  the  state 
within  the  meaning  of  the  provision  of  the  law  of  the 
United  States  regulating  the  jurisdiction  of  the  courts 
of  the  United  States.  Hepburn  et  al.  vs.  Ellzey,  2 
Cranch,  445  ;  1  Cond.  Rep.  444.  See  also  Lough- 
borough  vs.  Blake,  5  Wheat.  317,  and  Levy  Court  of 
Washington  vs.  Ringgold,  5  Peters,  451. 

4.  The  next  point  of  inquiry  is,  What  is  the  legal 
force  and  effect,  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  of  the  act 
of  Congress  of  1801,  before  cited  1  Its  words  are, 
"  That  the  laws  of  the  state  of  Maryland,  as  they 
now  exist,  shall  be  continued  in  force  in  that  part  of 
said  District  which  was  ceded  by  that  state  to  the 
United  States,"  &c.  And  here,  I  acknowledge  that 
•the  operation  of  this  clause  is  precisely  the  same  as 
though  Congress  had  transcribed  all  the  Maryland 
laws,  word  for  word,  and  letter  for  letter,  into  its  own 
statute  book,  with  the  clause  prefixed,  "  Be  it  enacted 
by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
United  States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled,"  and 
the  President  of  the  United  States  had  affixed  his  sig 
nature  thereto.  I  acknowledge  further,  that  the  laws 
of  Maryland  had  legalized  slavery  within  the  state  of 
Maryland,  and  had  defined  what  classes  of  persons 
might  be  held  as  slaves  therein. 

But  it  by  no  means  follows,  because  Congress  pro 
posed  to  reenact,  in  terms,  for  this  District,  all  the  laws 
of  Maryland,  that,  therefore,  it  did  reenact  them.  It 
does  not  follow,  that  because  two  legislatures  use  the 
same  words,  that  the  words  must  necessarily  have 
the  same  effect.  It  makes  all  the  difference  in  the 
world,  whether  words  are  used  by  one  possessed  of 
power,  or  by  one  devoid  of  power.  Congress  might 
pass  a  law  in  precisely  the  same  words  as  those  used 
by  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  and  yet  the  law 
of  Congress  be  invalid  and  inoperative,  while  the  act 
of  Parliament  would  be  valid  and  binding.  We  have 


165 

a  written  constitution  ;  Great  Britain  has  no  written 
constitution.  The  British  Parliament,  on  many  sub 
jects,  has  an  ampler  jurisdiction  than  the  American 
Congress.  The  law  of  Congress  might  be  unconsti 
tutional  and  void,  while  that  of  the  British  Parliament, 
framed  in  precisely  the  same  language,  might  be  con 
stitutional  and  binding. 

So  the  law  of  Maryland  might  be  valid  under  the 
constitution  of  Maryland,  and,  therefore,  binding  upon 
the  citizens  of  Maryland  ;  while  the  law  of  Congress, 
though  framed  in  precisely  the  same  words,  would  be 
repugnant  to  the  constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  therefore  have  no  validity. 

Now  this  is  precisely  the  case  before  us.  Congress, 
in  attempting  to  reenact  the  Maryland  laws,  to  uphold 
slavery  in  this  District,  transcended  the  limits  of  its 
constitutional  power.  It  acted  unconstitutionally.  It 
acted  in  plain  contravention  of  some  of  the  plainest 
and  most  obvious  principles  consecrated  by  the  consti 
tution.  If  so,  no  one  will  dispute  that  its  act  is  void. 
I  do  not  deny,  then,  that  Congress  used  words  of  suf 
ficient  amplitude  to  cover  slavery ;  but  what  I  deny  is, 
that  it  had  any  power  to  give  legal  force  to  those 
words. 

5.  My  next  proposition,  therefore,  is  this  :  That  as 
Congress  can  do  nothing  excepting  what  it  is  empowered 
to  do  by  the  constitution,  and  as  the  constitution  does 
not  empower  it  to  establish  slavery  here,  it  cannot  es 
tablish  slavery  here,  nor  continue  it. 

Where  is  there  any  express  power  given  to  Congress 
by  the  constitution  to  establish  slavery  ?  Where  is  the 
article,  section,  or  clause  ?  I  demand  to  have  the  title 
shown.  Thousands  of  human  beings  are  not  to  be 
robbed  of  all  their  dearest  rights,  and  they  and  their 
children,  forever,  by  strained  constitutions,  or  apocry 
phal  authority,  doomed  to  bondage.  Will  those  who 
say  that  Congress  cannot  establish  a  banking  institu- 


166 

tion  by  construction,  nor  aid  internal  improvements, 
nor  enact  a  tariff,  —  will  they  say  that  Congress  can 
make  a  man  a  slave,  and  all  his  posterity  slaves,  by 
construction  ? 

Nor  can  any  power  to  establish  slavery  be  deduced 
from  the  18th  clause  of  the  8th  section  of  the  1st  arti 
cle  of  the  constitution,  which  gives  Congress  power 
"  to  make  all  laws  which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper 
for  carrying  into  execution "  the  powers  that  are 
granted. 

What  power  is  granted  to  Congress,  for  the  exercise 
of  which  the  establishment  of  slavery  in  this  District 
is  a  necessary  means  or  a  preliminary  ?  Congress  has 
power  to  lay  and  collect  taxes ;  to  borrow  money  ;  to 
regulate  commerce  ;  to  establish  uniform  rules  of  nat 
uralization  •  to  coin  money  ;  to  punish  counterfeiters ; 
to  establish  post  offices  and  post  roads  ;  to  promote  the 
progress  of  science  and  the  arts ;  to  establish  courts ; 
to  define  and  punish  piracies  on  the  high  seas  ;  to  de 
clare  war  ;  to  raise  and  support  armies  ;  to  provide  and 
maintain  a  navy  ;  to  organize  and  maintain  a  militia  ; 
and  so  forth,  and  so  forth.  But  to  what  one  of  all  these 
powers  is  the  power  to  establish  slavery  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia  a  necessary  incident  ?  If  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia  were  to  cease  to-day,  could 
not  the  government  continue  to  exercise  every  function 
which  it  has  heretofore  exercised  ?  If  so,  then  the 
existence  of  slavery  in  this  District  is  not  "  necessary  " 
to  the  exercise  of  any  of  the  expressly  granted  powers. 
I  call  upon  any  gentleman  to  name  any  one  power  of 
this  government  which  cannot  be  exercised,  which 
must  necessarily  cease,  if  slavery  should  cease  to  be,  in 
this  District  of  Columbia?  "  I  pause  for  a  reply." 

Well,  then,  if  a  power  to  establish  slavery  in  this 
District  is  not  among  the  granted  powers,  and  if  it  is 
not  necessary  for  the  exercise  of  any  one  of  the  granted 
powers,  then  it  is  —  no  where  ;  —  it  does  not  exist  at 


167 

all.  No  power  of  Congress,  then,  exists,  either  for  the 
creation  or  for  the  continuance  of  slavery  in  this  Dis 
trict  ;  and  all  the  legislation  of  Congress  upon  this 
subject  is  beyond  or  against  the  constitution. 

Let  me  illustrate  this  in  another  way.  Suppose 
there  had  been  a  religious  establishment  in  Maryland 
at  the  time  of  the  cession  ;  suppose,  under  the  auspices 
of  Lord  Baltimore,  the  Catholic  religion  had  been  es 
tablished  as  the  religion  of  the  state  ;  and  that,  in 
order  to  punish  heresy  and  secure  conformity  to  the 
religion  of  the  state,  an  inquisition  had  been  founded, 
and  that  the  seat  of  that  inquisition  had  been  within 
the  limits  of  the  District  of  Columbia,  at  the  time  of 
the  cession  ;  could  Congress,  in  the  absence  of  all  ex 
press  or  implied  authority  on  the  subject  of  establish 
ing  a  state  religion,  have  upheld  the  Catholic  religion 
here,  and  appointed  the  officers  of  the  inquisition  to 
administer  it  ?  The  idea  is  abhorrent  to  the  whole 
spirit  of  the  constitution.  But  Congress  had  as  much 
power  to  establish  a  national  religion  here,  in  the  ab 
sence  of  all  express  or  implied  authority  to  do  so,  as  to 
establish  slavery  here. 

Congress,  then,  does  not  and  cannot  legalize  slavery 
in  this  District.  It  found  slavery  in  existence  in  the 
states ;  and  it  does  not  abolish  it,  or  interfere  with  it, 
because  it  has  no  power  of  u  exclusive  legislation  "  in 
them.  But  Congress  has  as  much  right  to  go  into  any 
state  and  abolish  slavery  there,  as  any  state,  even  Vir 
ginia  or  Maryland,  has  to  come  into  this  District  with 
its  laws  and  establish  slavery  here.  I  suppose  that  no 
jurist  will  contend  that  Congress  could  have  passed  the 
act  of  1793,  for  the  recapture  of  fugitive  slaves,  had  it 
not  been  for  the  third  clause  in  the  second  section  of 
the  fourth  article  of  the  constitution,  which  provides 
for  the  redelivery  of  a  fugitive  slave,  on  the  claim  of 
his  master.  By  this  article  in  the  constitution,  the  case 
of  fugitive  slaves  only  is  provided  for.  If  a  master 


168 

voluntarily  carries  his  slave  into  a  free  state,  and  the 
slave  departs  from  his  possession,  he  cannot  reclaim 
him.  Why  not  ?  Why  cannot  Congress  pass  a  law, 
that  if  a  man  takes  a  dozen  slaves  to  Boston,  and  they 
there  see  fit  to  strike  for  wages,  and  to  leave  his  pos 
session  because  their  terms  are  not  complied  with,  — 
why  is  it,  I  ask,  that  Congress  cannot  pass  a  law  au 
thorizing  their  seizure  and  delivery  into  the  master's 
hands?  The  reason  is,  that  the  constitution  has  con 
ferred  upon  Congress  no  such  express  power,  nor  is  any 
such  power  implied  as  being  necessary  to  the  exercise 
of  any  power  that  is  expressed.  And  if  Congress  can 
not  so  much  as  restore  a  slave  to  a  master,  who  has 
voluntarily  carried  him  into  a  free  state,  how  can  it 
continue  slavery  in  this  District,  after  Maryland  has 
ceded  it  to  this  government,  whose  fundamental, 
organic  law  gives  it  no  power  to  create  or  continue 
slavery  here  ? 

Suppose  Maryland  had  ceded  her  share  of  the  Dis 
trict  to  Massachusetts,  would  not  every  slave  in  it  have 
been  instantaneously  free  by  the  constitution  of  Mas 
sachusetts  ?  They  would  have  been  transferred  to  a 
free  jurisdiction,  — just  as  much  as  an  individual  own 
er  of  a  slave  transfers  him  to  a  free  jurisdiction,  when 
he  voluntarily  takes  him  to  the  north.  The  legal  ex 
istence  of  slavery  was  annulled  in  this  District  when 
Congress  exercised  its  "  exclusive  "  power  over  it,  just 
as  much  as  the  debtor's  right  to  be  discharged  under  the 
Maryland  bankrupt  law  was  annulled. 

But  I  go  further  than  this ;  and  I  say  that  the  con 
stitution  not  only  does  not  empower  Congress  to  estab 
lish  or  continue  slavery  in  this  District,  but  again  and 
again,  by  the  strongest  implications  possible,  it  prohib 
its  the  exercise  of  such  a  power. 

In  regard  to  this  whole  matter  of  slavery,  the  con 
stitution  touches  the  subject  with  an  averted  face. 
The  abhorred  word  "  slave  "  is  nowhere  mentioned  in 


169 

it.  The  constitution  is  ashamed  to  utter  such  a  name. 
The  country,  coming  fresh  from  that  baptism  of  fire, 
—  the  American  Revolution,  —  would  not  profane  its 
lips  with  this  unhallowed  word.  Hence,  circumlocu 
tion  is  resorted  to.  It  seeks  to  escape  a  guilty  confes 
sion.  Like  a  culprit,  in  whom  some  love  of  character 
still  survives,  it  speaks  of  its  offence  without  calling  it 
by  name.  It  uses  the  reputable  and  honorable  word 
"  persons,"  instead  of  the  accursed  word  "slaves."  As 
the  Tyrian  queen,  about  to  perpetrate  a  deed  which 
would  consign  her  character  to  infamy,  called  it  by  the 
sacred  name  of  "  marriage,"  and  committed  it,  — 

"  Hoc  pratexit  nomine  culpam  ;  " 

so  the  constitution,  about  to  recognize  the  most  guilty 
and  cruel  of  all  relations  between  man  and  man,  sought 
to  avert  its  eyes  from  the  act,  and  to  pacify  the  remon 
strances  of  conscience  against  every  participation  in 
the  crime,  by  hiding  the  deed  under  a  reputable 
word. 

But  let  us  look  to  the  prohibitions  of  the  constitu 
tion  ;  for  I  maintain  that  there  is  not  only  no  power, 
express  or  implied,  in  the  constitution  authorizing 
Congress  to  create  or  continue  slavery  in  this  District, 
but  that  it  is  debarred  and  prohibited  from  doing  so, 
again  and  again. 

I  suppose  no  one  will  deny  that  the  positive  pro 
hibitions,  against  the  exercise  of  certain  enumerated 
powers,  apply  to  Congress,  when  legislating  for  this 
District,  just  as  much  as  when  legislating  for  the 
union  at  large.  This  doctrine  has  recently  been 
strongly  asserted  by  Mr.  Calhoun  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States  ;  and,  as  I  would  gladly  produce  convic 
tion  in  southern  minds,  I  make  use  of  this  southern 
authority.  He  affirms  that  Congress,  in  legislating  for 
the  territories,  "  is  subject  to  many  and  important  re 
strictions  and  conditions,  of  which  some  are  expressed 
15 


170 

and  others  implied.  Among  the  former  may  be 
classed  all  the  general  and  absolute  prohibitions  of  the 
constitution  ;  that  is,  all  those  which  prohibit  the  ex 
ercise  of  certain  powers  under  any  circumstances.  In 
this  class  is  included  the  prohibition  of  granting  titles 
of  nobility  ;  passing  ex  post  facto  laws  and  bills  of 
attainder ;  the  suspension  of  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus, 
except  in  certain  cases  ;  making  laws  respecting  the 
establishment  of  religion,  or  its  free  exercise,  and  every 
other  of  like  description." 

Will  any  man  say  that  Congress  can  pass  an  ex  post 
facto  law  for  this  District,  arid  defend  itself  by  refer 
ring  to  its  power  of  "  exclusive  legislation  "  over  it  ? 
Can  Congress  pass  a  bill  of  attainder  corrupting  the  blood 
of  an  inhabitant  of  this  District,  or  repeal  or  suspend 
at  any  time  his  right  to  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  or 
establish  a  religion  here,  or  interdict  the  free  exercise 
thereof?  No  jurist,  no  statesman,  will  pretend  it. 

But  there  is  another  prohibition  in  the  constitution 
every  whit  as  full  and  explicit  as  any  of  these.  The 
fifth  article  of  amendment  declares  that  "  no  person 
shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property,  without 
due  process  of  law." 

Here  the  constitution  uses  the  word  .  "  person,"  — 
the  most  comprehensive  word  it  could  find.  "  No 
PERSON  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property, 
without  due  process  of  law."  Now,  what  does  this 
word  "person"  mean?  Or  who,  under  the  constitu 
tion,  is  such  a  "  person  "  as  cannot  be  deprived  of  life, 
liberty,  or  property,  by  virtue  of  an  act  of  Congress, 
without  due  process  of  law?  Let  us  take  our  defini 
tion  of  the  word  " person"  from  the  constitution 
itself.  "  No  person  shall  be  a  representative,  who  shall 
not  have  attained  the  age  of  twenty-five  years,"  &c., 
(see  2d  clause  of  the  2d  section  of  the  1st  article.) 
"  Representatives  and  direct  taxes  shall  be  apportioned 
among  the  several  states  which  maybe  included  within 


171 

this    union,  according  to    their    respective    numbers, 
which  shall   be  determined   by  adding   to   the   whole 
number  of  free  persons,  including  those  bound  to  ser 
vice  for  a  term  of  years,  and  excluding   Indians    not 
taxed,  three  fifths  of  all  other  persons."  (3d  clause  of 
the  same  section.)      "No    person  shall   be  a  senator 
who  shall  not  have   attained  the  age  of  thirty  years," 
&c.   (1st  art.,  3d   section,   3d   clause.)      "  No  person 
shall   be  convicted  [of  an  impeachable  offence,  by  the 
Senate]  without  the  concurrence  of  two  thirds."    (1st 
art.,  3d  section,  6th  clause.)     "No  person  holding  any 
office  under  the  United   States,  shall   be  a  member  of 
either  House,  during  his  continuance  in  office."     (1st 
art.,  6th  section,  2d  clause.)     "  The  migration  or  im 
portation  of  such  persons  as  any  of  the  states  now  ex 
isting  shall  think  proper  to  admit,  shall  not  be  prohib 
ited,"  —  "  but  a  tax,  or  duty,  may  be  imposed  on  such 
importation,  not  exceeding  ten  dollars  for  each  person" 
&c.     (1st   art.,  9th   section,    1st  clause.)     "  No  person 
holding  any  office  of  profit  or  trust,"  "  shall  accept  any 
present,"  &c.    (1st  art.,  9th  section,  8th  clause.)     "  No 
person  holding   an  office  of  trust  or   profit   under   the 
United  States,  shall  be  appointed  an  elector."    (2d  art., 
1st  section,  2d  clause.)     "  The  electors  shall  meet   in 
their  respective  states  and  vote  by  ballot  for  two  per 
sons^  &c.      "  The  person  having  the  greatest  number 
of  votes  shall  be  the   President,"  &c.     "If  no  person 
have  a  majority,"  &,c.      "  In  every  case,  after  the  choice 
of  the  President,  the  person  having  the  greatest  num 
ber  of  votes  of  the  electors,  shall  be  Vice  President." 
(2d  art.,  1st  section,  2d  clause.*)     "  No  person  except  a 
natural  born  citizen,  "&c.,  "shall  be  eligible  to  the  office 
of  President  ;  neither  shall   any  person   be  eligible   to 
that   office,  who  shall  not   have   attained  the   age  of 

*  This  clause  in  the  constitution  is  annulled  ;  but  for  all  purposes 
of  determining   the  true  interpretation  of  words,  it  is  as  good  as 


172 

thirty-five  years,"  &c.  "  No  person  shall  be  convict 
ed  of  treason,  unless  on  the  testimony  of  two  witness 
es,"  &c.  (3d  art.,  3d  sect.,  3d  clause.)  "  A  person 
charged  in  any  state  with  treason,"  &c.  (4th  art.,  2d 
section,  2d  clause.)  "  No  person  held  to  service  or 
labor,"  &c.  (4th  art.,  2d  section,  3d  clause.) 

Now,  it  will  be  seen  from  all  this,  that  the  word 
"person  "  is  used  in  the  constitution  in  the  most  com 
prehensive  sense.  It  embraces  Indians,  if  taxed  ;  it 
embraces  natives  of  Africa ;  it  embraces  apprentices 
and  slaves,  or  those  held  to  service  or  labor  ;  and  it 
embraces  every  citizen,  from  the  humblest  to  the  high 
est,  from  the  most  true  to  the  most  treasonable.  It 
embraces  all,  from  the  slave  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  And  after  having  used  the  word  to 
embrace  all  these  classes  and  descriptions  of  men,  it 
proceeds  to  say,  in  an  amendment,  that  "  no  PERSON 
shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property,  without 
due  process  of  law"  (Amendment,  Article  5.) 

The  law  of  Maryland  ceded  this  District  to  Con 
gress,  "in  full  and  absolute  right,  as  well  of  soil  as  of 
person,  residing,  or  to  reside  therein." 

Now  Congress,  in  attempting  to  legalize  slavery  in 
the  District  of  Columbia,  has  provided  in  terms,  by  its 
adoption  of  the  Maryland  laws,  that  one  man  may  hold 
another  man  in  bondage  in  this  District,  "  WITHOUT 
DUE  PROCESS  OF  LAW,"  and  indeed  without  any  process 
of  law;  may  hold  him  in  bondage  from  his  birth; 
may  beget  him,  and  still  hold  him  and  his  posterity  in 
bondage.  "  Process  of  law  "  means  legal  proceedings 
and  a  jury  trial.  It  is  a  phrase  that  does  not  pertain  to 
the  legislature,  but  to  the  courts.  It  means  the  insti 
tution  of  a  suit  in  civil  matters  ;  the  finding  of  an  in 
dictment,  or  an  information  in  criminal  ones ;  the  issu 
ing  of  subpoenas  for  witnesses,  &c.,  in  both.  (See 
Art.  6  of  Amendments  to  the  Constitution.] 

Now,  a  slave  is  a  person  deprived  of  his  liberty  and 


173 

property,  without  any  process  of  law.  There  has 
been  no  "  due  "  process  of  law  to  reduce  him  to  this 
miserable  condition  ;  there  has  been  no  process  of  law 
at  all.  A  slave,  therefore,  in  this  District,  is  deprived 
of  his  liberty  and  property,  in  pursuance  of  the  laws 
of  Congress,  without  any  legal  process  whatever,  and 
therefore  in  flagrant  contradiction  of  the  fifth  article 
of  the  Amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  Hence,  the  act  of  Congress,  purporting  to 
continue  the  Maryland  laws  respecting  slavery  in  this 
District,  was,  and  is,  and  forever  must  be.  until  the 
constitution  is  altered,  null  and  void. 

There  is  a  striking  historical  fact  in  regard  to  the 
phraseology  of  this  fifth  article  of  amendment.  Its 
substance  was  proposed  by  several  states.  Virginia  pro 
posed  it  in  the  following  words  :  "  No  freeman  ought 
to  be  taken,  imprisoned,  or  disseized  of  his  freehold 
liberties,  privileges,  or  franchises,  or  outlawed  or  ex 
iled,  or  in  any  manner  destroyed  or  deprived  of  his 
life,  liberty,  or  property,  but  by  the  law  of  the  land." 
(See  3  Elliot's  Debates,  593  —  Proceedings  of  June 
27,  1788.  Also,  4  Elliot's  Debates,  216,  for  the  same 
amendment,  as  proposed  by  the  State  of  New  York. ) 

The  Virginia  amendment  used  the  word  "freeman." 
It  proposed  that  no  "  freeman  "  should  be  deprived, 
&c.  The  New  York  amendment  used  the  word 
"person"  And  the  amendment  was  adopted  and  rat 
ified,  almost  in  the  words  of  the  New  York  phrase 
ology.  The  word  person  was  chosen,  and  therefore 
Congress  has  no  constitutional  power  to  deprive  of 
life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law, 
any  being  embraced  in  the  definition  of  that  word. 
By  its  own  selection  of  words  it  is  debarred  not 
merely  from  depriving  a  "freeman"  but  from  depriving 
a  "person  "  of  this  right. 

When  Congress  attempted  to  legalize  and  perpetuate 
slavery  in  this  District,  it  violated  the  fourth  article  of 
15* 


174 

the  Amendments,  which  declares  "  the  right  of  the 
people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  papers, 
and  effects,  against  unreasonable  searches  and  seizures." 
If  Congress  cannot  authorize  domiciliary  searches  and 
seizures  against  a  single  individual,  can  it  degrade  a 
whole  race  of  men  to  the  condition  of  slaves,  and  then 
say  that  because  they  are  slaves,  they  shall  not  be 
"  secure  ;  "  but  shall  be  at  the  mercy  of  any  alleged 
master,  in  regard  to  their  persons,  — to  be  commanded 
and  restrained,  to  be  bought  and  sold  ?  If  Congress 
cannot  authorize  searches  and  seizures  of  houses,  pa 
pers,  and  effects,  can  it  get  round  the  constitution,  by 
saying  we  will  create  a  class  of  persons  who  shall  have 
no  power  of  owning  any  houses,  papers,  or  effects,  to 
be  searched  or  seized  ? 

Again;  Congress  shall  pass  "no  bill  of  attainder." 
"What  is  a  bill  of  attainder  ?  It  is  a  bill  that  works 
corruption  of  blood.  It  disfranchises  its  object.  It 
takes  away  from  him  the  common  privileges  of  a  citi 
zen.  It  makes  a  man  incapable  of  acquiring,  inherit 
ing,  or  transmitting  property  ;  incapable  of  holding 
office,  or  acting  as  attorney  for  others  •  and  it  shuts  the 
door  of  the  courts  against  him.  These  disabling  con 
sequences  may  descend  to  a  man's  children  after  him, 
though  this  is  not  necessary.  Now,  to  pass  such  a  bill 
is  a  thing  which  Congress  cannot  do.  But  when  Con 
gress  undertook  to  legalize  slavery  in  this  District,  it 
undertook  to  do  all  this,  and  worse  than  all  this.  It 
attainted,  not  individuals  merely,  but  a  whole  race.  A 
slave  is  an  outlaw  ;  that  is,  he  cannot  make  a  contract ; 
he  cannot  prosecute  and  defend  in  court  ;  property 
cannot  be  acquired  by  him,  or  devised  to  him,  or  trans 
mitted  through  him.  A  white  man  may  give  his  testi 
mony  against  him,  but  he  cannot  give  his  testimony 
against  a  white  man.  He  is  despoiled  of  his  liber  am 
legem,  —  his  birthright.  He  cannot  own  the  food  or 
clothes  he  has  earned.  What  is  his.  is  his  master's. 


175 

And  this  corruption  of  blood,  which  the  law  of  slavery 
works,  does  not  stop  with  the  first,  nor  with  the  sec 
ond  generation,  —  not  with  the  tenth  nor  the  ten  thou 
sandth  ;  but  by  the  theory  of  the  law,  goes  on  forever. 
Bills  of  attainder,  during  the  history  of  the  worst  periods 
of  the  world,  have  applied  to  individuals  only,  or  at  most 
to  a  family.  But  here,  Congress,  in  defiance  of  the  con 
stitution,  has  undertaken  to  establish  a  degraded  caste 
in  society,  and  to  perpetuate  it  through  all  generations. 
Now,  can  any  reasonable  man  for  a  moment  suppose 
that  the  constitution  meant  to  debar  Congress  from 
passing  acts  of  attainder  against  individuals,  but  to 
permit  it  to  pass  wholesale,  sweeping  laws,  working 
enfranchisement  of  an  entire  race,  and  entailing  degra 
dation  forever  ? 

Let  us  look  at  another  general  prohibition  of  the 
constitution  :  "  No  title  of  nobility  shall  be  granted  by 
the  United  States."  (art.  1,  $  9,  clause  8.)  "  The  dis 
tinction  of  rank  and  honors,"  says  Blackstone,  "  is 
necessary  in  every  well-governed  state,  in  order  to  re 
ward  such  as  are  eminent  for  their  services  to  the 
public."  But  the  framers  of  the  constitution  did  not 
think  so  ;  the  people  of  the  United  States  did  not 
think  so  ;  and  therefore  they  incorporated  a  provision 
into  their  organic  law  that  "  no  title  of  nobility  should 
be  granted."  But  it  matters  not  whether  the  favored 
individual  is  called  "Marquess"  or  "Master."  If  he 
is  invested  by  the  government  with  a  monopoly  of 
rights  and  privileges,  in  virtue  of  his  title  and  its  legal 
incidents,  without  any  corresponding  civil  duties,  he 
belongs  to  an  order  of  nobility, — he  is  a  nobleman. 
Mr.  McDuffie  defends  the  institution  of  slavery,  on  the 
ground  that  it  establishes  the  highest  of  all  ranks  and 
the  broadest  of  all  distinctions  between  men.  He  says 
no  nation  has  yet  existed  which  has  not  in  some  form 
created  the  distinction  of  classes,  — such  as  patrician 
and  plebeian,  or  citizen  and  helot,  or  lord  and  com- 


176 

moner,  —  and  that  the  institution  of  slavery  stands 
here  instead  of  these  orders,  and  supersedes  them  all, 
by  being  equivalent  to  them  all.  Now,  is  it  not  incon 
ceivable  that  the  constitution  should  interdict  the  be- 
stovvment  of  special  favors  to  distinguished  individu 
als  for  meritorious  services,  and  yet  should  authorize 
Congress  to  confer  the  highest  of  all  earthly  preroga 
tives, —  the  prerogative  over  property,  liberty,  and  vo 
lition  itself,  upon  one  class  of  men  over  another  class 
of  men  ?  Yet  if  Congress  can  create  or  legalize  sla 
very,  it  can  establish  the  worst  order  of  nobility  that 
ever  existed.  It  can  give  to  one  class  of  men  the 
power  to  own  and  to  control,  to  punish  arid  to  despoi. 
another  class  ;  to  sell  father,  mother,  wife,  and  children, 
into  bondage.  To  prohibit  Congress  from  doing  one  of 
these  things,  and  to  permit  it  to  do  the  other,  is  strain 
ing  at  a  gnat  and  swallowing  a  camel, — a  whole 
caravan  of  camels ! 

But  the  same  clause  in  the  constitution  which  gives 
Congress  the  power  of  exclusive  legislation  over  this 
District,  also  empowers  it  "  to  exercise  like  authority 
over  all  places  purchased  by  the  consent  of  the  legis 
lature  of  the  state,  in  which  the  same  shall  be,  for  the 
erection  of  forts,  magazines,  arsenals,  dock-yards,  and 
other  needful  buildings."  If,  then,  Congress  has  any 
constitutional  power  to  legalize  slavery  in  this  District, 
it  has  the  same  power  to  legalize  it,  (that  is,  to  create 
it,)  in  all  places  in  the  state  of  Massachusetts,  or  New 
York,  or  any  other,  where  it  may  have  obtained  terri 
tory  from  a  state  for  a  fort,  magazine,  arsenal,  dock 
yard,  or  other  needful  building.  Where  it  has  obtained 
land  in  the  middle  of  a  city, — Philadelphia,  New 
York,  Boston,  or  Chicago, — for  a  custom-house,  it 
may  create  slavery  there.  The  power  to  do  this  is 
conferred  in  precisely  the  same  words  as  the  power  by 
which  it  has  been  held  that  slavery  can  be  established 
in  the  District  of  Columbia. 


177 

And  now  I  will  occupy  the  few  minutes  that  are 
left  me,  in  considering  what  seems  to  me  the  only 
plausible  argument  that  can  be  urged  in  favor  of  the 
constitutionality  of  slavery  in  this  District. 

It  may  be  said,  that  when  a  territory  is  obtained  by 
one  nation  from  another,  whether  by  conquest  or  by 
treaty,  the  laws  which  governed  the  inhabitants  at  the 
time  of  the  conquest  or  cession,  remain  in  force  until 
they  are  abrogated  by  the  laws  of  the  conquering  or 
purchasing  power.  For  this  principle,  the  authority 
of  Lord  Mansfield,  in  the  case  of  Campbell  v.  Hall, 
1  Cowper,  208,  may  be  cited.  The  decision  of  our 
own  courts  are  to  the  same  effect.  (See  United  States, 
appellant,  vs.  Juan  Percheman,  2  Gallison's  Reports, 
501  ;  Johnson  vs.  Mdntosh,  7  Peters,  51  ;  8  Wheat. 
543.)  I  do  not  dispute  the  authority  of  this  case.  But 
it  does  not  touch  the  question  I  am  arguing  ;  or,  so  far 
as  it  bears  upon  it  at  all,  it  confirms  the  views  I  would 
enforce.  The  principle  is,  that  the  existing  laws  re 
main  in  force  until  they  are  abrogated.  I  agree  to 
this.  But  in  the  case  of  the  District  of  Columbia, 
there  was  a  special  agreement  between  Maryland  and 
the  United  States,  that  as  soon  as  the  United  States 
should  legislate  for  the  District,  the  laws  of  Maryland, 
us  such,  should  cease  to  be  operative  here.  On  the 
27th  day  of  February,  1801,  therefore,  all  the  rights 
which  the  citizens  of  this  District  possessed,  they  pos 
sessed  under  the  law  of  Congress,  and  not  under  the 
law  of  Maryland.  On  the  day  preceding,  a  citizen 
could  have  voted  for  governor  or  other  state  officers 
of  Maryland  ;  but  on  the  day  following,  he  could  no 
longer  vote  for  any  such  officer.  On  the  day  pre 
ceding,  he  could  have  voted  for  electors  of  President 
and  Vice  President  of  the  United  States  ;  but  on  the 
day  following,  he  was  bereft  of  all  such  right  of  the  elec 
tive  franchise,  and  must  accept  such  officers  and  legis 
lators  as  the  rest  of  the  country  might  choose  to  elect 


178 

for  him.  On  the  day  preceding,  he  might,  in  the  char 
acter  of  an  insolvent  debtor,  have  been  discharged  un 
der  the  insolvent  laws  of  Maryland  ;  but  on  the  day  fol 
lowing,  he  could  no  longer  be  so  discharged.  On  the 
day  preceding,  he  might  have  been  required,  though  a 
justice  of  the  peace  of  the  State  of  Maryland,  to  per 
form  militia  duty  ;  but  on  the  day  following,  if  com 
missioned  as  a  justice  of  the  peace  of  the  District  of 
Columbia,  he  could  not  be  compelled  to  perform  rnilitia 
duty,  because  he  would,  in  such  case,  be  an  officer  of 
the  United  States.  On  the  day  preceding,  he  might 
have  sued  in  the  circuit  court  of  the  United  States,  as 
being  a  citizen  of  Maryland  •  but,  on  the  day  follow 
ing,  he  could  not  so  sue,  because  he  had  ceased  to  be 
a  citizen  of  a  state.  Thus  the  change  of  jurisdiction 
over  him  deprived  him  of  some  privileges,  and  relieved 
him  from  some  burdens.  It  deprived  him  of  these 
privileges,  and  relieved  him  from  these  burdens,  not 
withstanding  the  act  of  Congress  had  said,  in  unam 
biguous  words,  "  the  laws  of  the  State  of  Maryland,  AS 
THEY  NOW  EXIST,  shall  be  and  continue  in  force  in  that 
part  of  the  said  District  which  was  ceded  by  that  state 
to  the  United  States."  But  the  most  momentous 
change  which  was  wrought  by  the  transfer  of  the  cit 
izen  from  the  jurisdiction  of  Maryland  to  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  the  United  States,  was  that  which  made  it  im 
possible  for  him  any  longer  to  hold  a  slave.  Under 
the  laws  of  Maryland,  he  might  have  held  his  slave, 
for  her  statutes  had  legalized  slavery  :  but  under  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States,  he  could  riot  hold  a 
slave  ;  for  that  constitution  had  given  Congress  no 
power  to  legalize  slavery  in  this  District,  and  had  gone 
so  far  as  to  make  prohibitions  against  it.  His  right  to 
hold  slaves  then  expired,  or  fell,  like  his  right  to  vote 
for  United  States'  officers,  or  for  state  officers,  or  his 
right  to  be  discharged  under  the  Maryland  insolvent 
law,  or  his  right  to  sue  in  certain  courts,  &c.,  &c. 


One  point  more,  sir,  and  I  have  done.  Why,  says 
my  opponent,  did  not  the  right  to  hold  slaves  continue 
after  the  change  of  jurisdiction,  as  well  as  the  right  to 
hold  horses  ?  For  the  plainest  of  all  reasons,  I  answer : 
for  the  reason  that  a  horse  is  property  by  the  universal 
consent  of  mankind,  by  the  recognition  of  every  civ 
ilized  court  in  Christendom,  without  any  positive  law 
declaring  it  to  be  the  subject  of  ownership.  But  a 
man  is  not  property,  without  positive  law ;  without  a 
law  declaring  him  to  be  the  subject  of  ownership. 
There  was  such  a  positive  law  in  Maryland  ;  but  Con 
gress,  for  want  of  constitutional  authority,  could  not 
enact,  revive,  or  continue  it.  And  such  I  verily  believe 
would  have  been  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  had  the  question  been  carried 
before  them  immediately  subsequent  to  the  act  of 
1801.  But  now,  as  slavery  has  existed  practically  in 
this  District  for  half  a  century,  it  is  proper  to  pass  a 
law  abolishing  it.  It  is  better,  under  the  present  cir 
cumstances,  that  slavery  should  be  abolished  here  by 
a  law  of  Congress,  than  by  the  decision  of  a  court  ; 
because  Congress  can  provide  an  indemnity  for  the 
owners,  and  let  the  slaves  go  free.  But  should  it  be 
abolished  by  a  legal  adjudication,  every  slave  would 
be  hurried  away  to  the  south,  and  sold,  he  and  his  de 
scendants,  into  perpetual  bondage. 

In  justice,  then,  to  the  north,  which  ought  not  to 
bear  the  opprobrium  of  slavery  in  this  capital  of  the 
nation  ;  in  justice  to  the  slaves  who  are  here  held  in 
bondage  against  legal,  as  well  as  natural  right ;  and,  in 
more  than  justice  to  the  masters,  whose  alleged  claims 
I  am  willing,  under  all  the  circumstances,  to  satisfy, 
let  a  law  be  forthwith  passed  for  ascertaining  and  pay 
ing  the  market  value  of  the  slaves,  and  for  repealing  all 
laws  which  uphold  slavery  in  this  District. 


180 


SPEECH 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTA 
TIVES,  FEBRUARY  15,  1850,  ON  THE  SUBJECT  OF  SLAVERY  IN 
THE  TERRITORIES,  AND  THE  CONSEQUENCES  OF  A  DISSOLUTION 
OF  THE  UNION. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN  ; 

Ever  since  the  organization  of  this  House,  —  before 
its  organization,  and  even  in  a  preliminary  caucus  that 
preceded  the  commencement  of  the  session,  southern 
gentlemen  have  pressed  the  cause,  not  only  of  human 
slavery,  but  of  slavery  extension,  upon  us.  From 
motives  of  forbearance,  and  not  from  any  question  as 
to  our  rights,  we  of  the  north  have  maintained  an 
unbroken  silence.  The  time  has  surely  come  when 
the  voice  of  freedom  should  find  an  utterance.  Would 
to  God  that  on  the  present  occasion  it  might  find  an 
abler  defender  than  myself,  although  if  my  ability  to 
defend  it  were  equal  to  the  love  I  bear  it,  it  could  ask 
no  stronger  champion. 

I  wish  to  premise  a  few  words  respecting  the  pro 
priety  and  true  significance  of  some  of  the  epithets  by 
which  the  parties  to  this  discussion  are  characterized. 
The  term  "  Free  Soiler "  is  perpetually  used  upon 
this  floor  as  a  term  of  ignominy  and  reproach  ;  yet  I 
maintain  that  in  its  original  and  legitimate  sense,  as 
denoting  an  advocate  of  the  doctrine  that  all  our  terri 
torial  possessions  should  be  consecrated  to  freedom, 
there  is  no  language  that  can  supply  a  more  honorable 
appellation.  It  expresses  a  determination  on  the  part 
of  its  disciples  to  keep  free  the  territory  that  is  now 
free  ;  to  stand  upon  its  frontiers  as  the  cherubim  stood 


181 

at  the  gates  of  Paradise,  with  a  flaming  sword  to  turn 
every  way,  to  keep  the  sin  of  slavery  from  crossing 
its  borders.  If.  in  any  instance,  the  original  advocates 
of  Free  Soil  have  abandoned  their  integrity,  and  have 
courted  allies  who  had  no  sympathy  with  their  princi 
ples,  but  were  only  eager  to  join  them  in  a  struggle 
for  mere  political  ascendency,  then,  in  my  judgment, 
they  have  lost  infinitely  more  in  moral  power  than  they 
have  gained  in  numbers.  They  have  ceased  to  be 
genuine  and  single-hearted  Free  Soilers,  whom  I  love, 
and  have  become  partisans,  whom  I  condemn.  For 
myself,  I  will  engage  in  any  honorable  measure  most 
likely  to  secure  freedom  to  the  new  territories.  I  will 
resist  any  and  every  measure  that  proposes  to  abandon 
them  to  slavery.  The  epithet  "Free  Soiler,"  therefore, 
when  rightly  understood  and  correctly  applied,  implies 
both  political  and  moral  worth  ;  and  I  covet  the  honor 
of  its  application  to  myself.  But  what  does  its  oppo 
site  mean  ?  What  does  the  term  "  Slave  Soiler  "  sig 
nify  ?  It  signifies  one  who  desires  and  designs  that 
all  soil  should  be  made  to  bear  slaves.  Its  dreadful 
significancy  is,  that,  after  Magna  Charta  and  the  Peti 
tion  of  Right,  in  Great  Britain,  and  after  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  in  this  country,  we  should  cast 
aside  with  scorn,  not  only  the  teachings  of  Christian 
ity,  but  the  clearest  principles  of  natural  religion  and 
of  natural  law,  and  should  retrograde  from  our  boasted 
civilization,  into  the  Dark  Ages,  —  ay,  into  periods 
that  the  dark  ages  might  have  called  dark.  It  means 
that  this  Republic,  as  we  call  it,  formed  to  establish 
freedom,  should  enlist  in  a  crusade  against  freedom. 

And  again  ;  those  of  us  at  the  north  who  resist 
slavery  extension,  who  mean  to  withstand  its  spread 
beyond  the  limits  where  it  now  exists,  are  denounced 
as  Abolitionists.  This  epithet  is  applied  to  us  as  a 
term  of  reproach  and  obloquy  ;  as  a  brand  and  stigma 
upon  our  characters  and  principles.  No  distinction  is 
16 


182 

made  between  those  few  individuals  among  us  who 
desire  to  abolish  the  constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  that  great  body  of  the  people,  who,  while  their 
allegiance  to  this  constitution  is  unshaken,  mean  also 
to  maintain  their  allegiance  to  truth  and  to  duty,  in 
withstanding  the  hitherto  onward  march  of  slavery. 
Among  the  latter  class,  Mr.  Collamer,  the  postmaster- 
general,  is  called  an  Abolitionist.  Mr.  John  Quincy 
Adams  was  denounced  as  an  arch-Abolitionist.  Every 
man  who  advocates  the  Jefferson  proviso,  against  the 
spread  of  slavery,  is  so  called  ;  and  if  an  unspeakable 
abhorrence  of  this  institution,  and  the  belief  that  it  is 
the  second  greatest  enormity  which  the  oppressor,  in 
his  power,  ever  committed  against  the  oppressed,  in  his 
weakness,  —  being  inferior  only  to  that  ecclesiastical 
domination  which  has  trampled  upon  the  religious 
freedom  of  man,  —  I  say,  if  this  abhorrence  of  slavery, 
and  this  belief  in  its  criminality,  entitle  a  man  to  be 
denominated  an  Abolitionist,  then  I  rejoice  in  my 
unquestionable  right  to  the  name. 

In  my  apprehension,  sir,  before  we  can  decide  upon 
the  honor  or  the  infamy  of  the  term  "  Abolitionist," 
we  must  know  what  things  they  are  which  he  pro 
poses  to  abolish.  We  of  the  north,  you  say,  are  Aboli 
tionists  ;  but  abolitionists  of  what  ?  Are  we  aboli 
tionists  of  the  inalienable,  indefeasible,  indestructible 
rights  of  man  ?  Are  we  abolitionists  of  knowledge, 
abolitionists  of  virtue,  of  education,  and  of  human 
culture  ?  Do  we  seek  to  abolish  the  glorious  moral 
and  intellectual  attributes  which  God  has  given  to  his 
children,  and  thus,  as  far  as  it  lies  in  our  power,  make 
the  facts  of  slavery  conform  to  the  law  of  slavery,  by 
obliterating  the  distinction  between  a  man  and  a  beast  ? 

Do  our  laws  and  our  institutions  seek  to  blot  out 
and  abolish  the  image  of  God  in  the  human  soul  ? 
Do  we  abolish  the  marriage  covenant ;  and  instead  of 
saying,  with  the  apostle,  that  wives  shall  submit 


i83 

themselves  to  their  husbands,  command  them  to  sub 
mit  themselves  to  any  body,  and  to  their  master  as 
husband  over  all  ?  Do  we  ruthlessly  tear  asunder  the 
sacred  ties  of  affection  by  which  God  has  bound  the  pa 
rent  to  the  child  and  the  child  to  the  parent  ?  Do  we 
seek  to  abolish  all  those  noble  instincts  of  the  human 
soul,  by  which  it  yearns  for  improvement  and  prog 
ress  ;  and  do  we  quench  its  sublime  aspirations  after 
knowledge  and  virtue  ?  A  stranger  would  suppose, 
from  hearing  the  epithets  of  contumely  that  are  heaped 
upon  us,  that  we  were  abolitionists  of  all  truth,  purity, 
knowledge,  improvement,  civilization,  happiness,  and 
holiness.  On  this  subject,  perversion  of  language  and 
of  idea  has  teen  reduced  to  a  system,  and  the  false 
hoods  of  our  calumniators  exclude  truth  with  the 
exactness  of  a  science. 

But  if  the  word  "Abolitionist"  is  to  be  used  in  a 
reproachful  and  contumelious  sense,  does  it  not  more 
properly  belong  to  those  who  would  extend  a  system 
which  in  its  very  nature  abolishes  freedom,  justice, 
equity,  and  a  sense  of  human  brotherhood  ?  Does  it 
not  belong  to  those  who  would  abolish  not  only  all 
social  and  political,  but  all  natural  rights  ;  who  would 
abolish  "liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  ;  "  who 
would  close  up  all  the  avenues  to  knowledge  ;  who 
would  render  freedom  of  thought  and  liberty  of  con 
science  impossible,  by  crushing  out  the  faculties  by 
which  alone  we  can  think  and  decide  ;  who  would 
rob  a  fellow-man  of  his  parental  rights,  and  innocent 
children  of  the  tenderness  and  joys  of  a  filial  love  ; 
who  would  introduce  a  foul  concubinage  in  place  of 
the  institution  of  marriage,  and  who  would  remorse 
lessly  trample  upon  all  the  tenderest  and  holiest  affec 
tions  which  the  human  soul  is  capable  of  feeling  ? 
After  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  had  enumerated  a  few  oppressive  deeds  of  the 
British  king  towards  his  American  colonists,  he  de- 


184 

nominated  him  "a  prince  whose  character  was  marked 
by  every  act  that  could  define  a  tyrant."  There  are 
now  as  many  slaves  in  this  country  as  there  were  col 
onists  in  1776.  Compare  the  condition  of  these  three 
million  slaves  with  the  condition  of  the  three  million 
colonists.  The  conduct  of  that  sovereign  who  was 
denounced  before  earth  and  heaven  as  having  com 
mitted  all  the  atrocities  that  could  "  define  a  tyrant," 
was  mercy  and  loving-kindness  compared  with  the 
wrongs  and  privations  of  three  millions  of  our  fellow- 
beings,  now  existing  among  us.  If  the  word  "  Aboli 
tionist,"  then,  is  to  be  used  in  a  reproachful  sense,  let 
it  be  applied  to  those  who,  in  the  middle  of  the  nine 
teenth  century,  and  in  defiance  of  all  the^lights  of  the 
age,  would  extend  the  horrors  of  an  institution  which, 
by  one  all-comprehending  crime  towards  a  helpless 
race,  makes  it  impossible  to  commit  any  new  crime 
against  them,  —  unless  it  be  to  enlarge  the  area  of 
their  bondage,  and  to  multiply  the  number  of  their 
victims. 

If  we  are  abolitionists,  then,  we  are  abolitionists  of 
human  bondage  ;  while  those  who  oppose  us  are 
abolitionists  of  human  liberty.  We  would  prevent 
the  extension  of  one  of  the  greatest  wrongs  that  man 
ever  suffered  upon  earth  ;  they  would  carry  bodily 
chains  and  mental  chains,  —  chains  in  a  literal  and 
chains  in  a  figurative  sense.  —  into  realms  where  even 
the  half-civilized  descendants  of  the  Spaniard  and  the 
Indian  have  silenced  their  clanking.  We  would  avert 
the  impending  night  of  ignorance  and  superstition  ; 
they  would  abolish  the  glorious  liberty  wherewith 
God  maketh  his  children  free.  In  using  this  word, 
therefore,  to  calumniate  us,  they  put  darkness  for  light, 
and  light  for  darkness  ;  good  for  evil,  and  evil  for  good. 

The  constitutional  right  of  Congress  to  legislate  for 
the  territories  is  still  debated.  Having  presented  my 
views  on  this  subject  before,  I  shall  now  treat  it  with 


185 

brevity.  In  a  speech,  by  General  Cass,  which  has 
lately  been  published,  that  distinguished  senator,  in 
order  to  prove  that  Congress  has  no  power  to  legislate 
on  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  territories,  has  at 
tempted  to  prove  that  it  has  no  right  to  legislate  for  the 
territories  at  all.  I  refer  to  the  senator  from  Michigan, 
because  he  now  stands  before  the  country  in  the  two 
fold  character  of  being  the  head  of  the  Democratic 
party,  which  goes  for  the  "  largest  liberty"  and  also 
of  the  extreme  pro-slavery  party,  which  goes  for  the 
/(if»'cst  bondage.  He  would  sever  all  diplomatic  rela 
tions  between  this  country  and  Austria,  because  she 
has  robbed  the  Hungarians  of  a  part  of  their  liberties, 
while  he  is  drawing  closer  the  political  ties  which  bind 
him  to  the  south,  which  has  despoiled  three  millions 
of  the  African  race  of  all  their  liberties,  and  is  now 
intent  on  propagating  other  millions  for  new  despolia 
tions.  He  claims,  as  the  great  bequest  of  the  barons 
of  Runnymede,  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  territories, 
under  all  circumstances  of  infancy,  or  poverty,  or 
weakness,  shall  have  the  sole  and  exclusive  right  of 
governing  themselves,  when  the  practical  result  of  this 
doctrine,  so  nicely  timed,  would  be,  that  one  part  of 
those  inhabitants  would  be  crowned  with  power  like 
so  many  King  Johns,  to  lord  it  over  their  vassals. 
Under  the  name  of  liberty,  he  enters  a  path  that  ter 
minates  in  bondage.  Southern  gentlemen  had  all 
admitted  the  power  of  Congress  to  legislate  for  the 
territories,  though  they  denied  the  special  inference, 
deducible  from  the  general  power,  that  they  could 
legislate  to  prohibit  slavery  in  them.  But,  seeing  that 
the  right  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  slavery  flows 
irresistibly  from  the  right  to  legislate  on  all  other  sub 
jects,  because  no  rule  of  interpretation,  which  concedes 
the  power  to  make  laws  respecting  political  franchises, 
courts,  crimes,  officers,  and  the  militia,  can  stop  short 
at  the  subject  of  slavery; — seeing  all  this.  General 
16* 


186 

Cass  denies  both  inference  and  premises,  and  places 
the  general  government  in  the  relation  of  a  foreign 
power  to  the  territories  which  it  owns,  and  of  which  it 
possesses  the  acknowledged  sovereignty.  He  reminds 
one  of  the  man  who  denied  the  existence  of  future 
punishment,  and,  when  pressed  with  arguments  drawn 
from  the  deserts  of  men,  and  from  the  justice  of  God, 
he  suddenly  arrested  his  antagonist  by  denying  the 
existence  of  a  God  ! 

When  some  immensely  long  speech  made  in  the 
British  House  of  Commons,  was  spoken  of  before 
Sheridan  as  being  luminous,  he  expressed  both  a  nega 
tive  and  an  affirmative  opinion  respecting  it,  in  a  single 
word,  by  replying  that  it  was  vo-luminous.  General 
Cass,  in  a  speech  that  fills  more  than  nineteen  columns 
in  the  Washington  Union,  has  reviewed  the  decisions 
of  all  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  who  have  ever 
expressed  any  opinion  on  the  subject  of  congressional 
power  over  territorial  legislation  ;  he  has  commented 
upon  the  views  of  all  the  jurists  who  have  written 
upon  it,  and  of  most  of  the  speakers  in  both  Houses  of 
Congress  who  have  discussed  it ;  he  has  surveyed  the 
course  of  administration  of  all  the  Presidents  we  have 
ever  had  ;  and  has  come  to  the  clear  conclusion  that 
all  of  them, — judges,  jurists,  legislators,  and  presi 
dents, —  have  systematically  violated  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States,  or  commended  its  violation,  on 
every  practicable  occasion  for  the  last  sixty  years. 

Omitting  the  hundred  ways  in  which  the  absurdity 
of  this  conclusion  can  be  exposed,  let  me  subject  it  to 
one  practical  test.  We  have  acquired  territory  from 
Mexico.  General  Cass  voted  to  ratify  the  treaty  of 
cession.  Measures  have  been  instituted  for  the  forma 
tion  of  three  separate  governments  in  this  Territory, — 
those  of  California,  Deseret,  [Utah,]  and  New  Mexico. 
The  boundaries  marked  out  by  California  and  Deseret 
overlay  each  other  to  the  amount  of  thousands  of  square 


1ST 

miles.  If  they  have  the  exclusive  right  of  self- 
government,  as  General  Cass  declares,  and  Congress 
none,  then  they  must  settle  this  question  of  boundary 
themselves.  They  may  declare  war  against  each 
other,  make  alliances  with  foreign  powers,  equip 
armies,  build  fleets  ;  while  Congress  can  do  nothing 
within  their  limits  but  —  sell  land. 

But  what  renders  the  argument  of  General  Cass  still 
more  extraordinary  is  the  fact,  that,  according  to  his  own 
doctrine,  he  has  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  political 
life  in  violating  the  constitution,  while  constantly  re 
peating  his  oath  to  support  it.  As  marshal  of  Ohio,  as 
governor  of  Michigan,  as  Indian  agent,  he  has  ap 
pointed  officers  and  magistrates,  and  executed  laws, 
when,  according  to  Jiis  own  showing,  he  was  a  mere 
interloper  and  usurper ;  he  has  met  territorial  legisla 
tures,  which  had  no  more  right  to  assemble  than  a 
mob ;  he  has  doubtless  imprisoned,  if  not  executed 
many  alleged  offenders,  who  had  as  good  a  legal  right 
to  execute  or  to  imprison  him  ;  and  he  has  received  sala 
ries  for  more  than  twenty  years,  to  which  the  khan  of 
Tartary  was  as  much  entitled  as  he.  Now,  if  he  will 
refund  the  salaries  he  has  unconstitutionally  received  ; 
make  reparation  for  the  penalties  or  forfeitures  he  has 
wrongfully  extorted  ;  show  some  signs  of  contrition 
for  the  men  whom  he  has  unlawfully  imprisoned  or 
hung,  it  will  remove  the  suspicions  of  many  minds,  in 
regard  to  the  sincerity,  if  not  the  soundness,  of  his 
argument. 

I  mention  these  facts  from  no  personal  feelings  in 
regard  to  the  senator  from  Michigan  ;  but  only  to 
show  to  what  desperate  extremities  men  are  driven  in 
order  to  defend  the  right  of  spreading  slavery  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  ocean ;  and  because  this  is  the 
last  reading  of  the  constitution  which  has  been  in 
vented  for  the  purpose. 

Since  the  last  session  of  Congress,  the  condition  of 


188 

a  part  of  this  territory  has  greatly  changed.  The  un 
exampled  velocity  with  which  a  living  stream  of  men 
has  poured  into  it  within  the  last  twelve  months,  lias 
reversed  its  condition  and  decided  its  destiny.  In 
other  countries,  individuals  seek  their  fortunes  by 
changing  their  residence.  Under  the  vehement  action 
of  our  enterprise,  cities  migrate.  The  new  residents 
of  California  have  framed  a  constitution,  have  applied 
for  admission  into  this  Union,  and  their  application  is 
now  pending  before  us.  Of  their  own  accord,  they 
have  excluded  slavery  from  their  borders  by  their  fun 
damental  law.  Until  the  discovery  of  gold  in  that 
country,  and  until  all  incredulity  in  regard  to  that 
remarkable  fact  had  been  overcome,  it  was  confidently 
anticipated  at  the  south,  and  intensely  feared  at  the 
north,  that  the  whole  region  would  be  overrun  with 
slaveholders  and  with  slaves.  As  far  back  as  1842, 
Mr.  Wise,  of  Virginia,  the  administration  leader  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,  boldly  declared  that  "  sla 
very  should  pour  itself  abroad  without  restraint,  and 
find  no  limit  but  the  Southern  Ocean"  The  war 
with  Mexico  was  waged  for  the  twofold  purpose  of 
robbing  that  republic  of  its  territory,  and  then  rob 
bing  that  territory  of  its  freedom.  Congressional  ora 
tors  and  the  southern  press  avowed  that  the  object  of 
acquiring  territory  was  to  extend  the  "  divine  institu 
tion."  I  could  quote  pages  in  proof  of  this  assertion. 
The  north  had  no  hope,  the  south  had  no  fear,  if  the 
territories  were  left  without  control,  but  that  they 
would  first  be  filled  with  slaveholders,  and  would  then 
incorporate  slavery  into  their  organic  law.  While 
these  prospects  continued,  the  south  insisted  that  the 
territories  should  be  left  untrammelled.  Distinguished 
men  in  this  House,  Mr.  Calhoun  and  other  senators, 
the  government  organ,  which  was  supposed  to  express 
the  views  of  President  Polk  and  his  cabinet,  all  pro 
claimed  that  the  territories  should  be  left  free  to 


189 

institute  such  government  as  they  might  choose.*  But 
since  California  has  formed  a  free  constitution,  what,  a 
sudden  change  has  taken  place  in  the  convictions  of 

*  In  February,  1847,  Mr.  Calhoun  offered  a  scries  of  resolutions 
in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  among  which  was  the  follow 
ing  :— 

"  Resolved,  That  it  is  a  fundamental  principle  in  our  political  creed, 
that  a  people,  in  forming  a  constitution,  have  the  unconditional  right 
to  form  and  adopt  the  government  which  they  may  think  best  calcu 
lated  to  secure  their  liberty,  prosperity  and  happiness  ;  and,  in  con 
formity  thereto,  no  other  condition  is  imposed  by  the  Federal  Consti 
tution  on  a  state,  in  order  to  be  admitted  into  this  Union,  except  that 
its  constitution  shall  be  "republican;"  and  that  the  imposition  of 
any  other  by  Congress  would  not  only  be  in  violation  of  the  consti 
tution,  but  in  direct  conflict  with  the  principle  on  which  our  political 
system  rests." 

In  sustaining  these  resolutions,  he  said,  — 

"  Sir,  I  hold  it  to  be  a  fundamental  principle  of  our  political  system 
that  the  people  have  a  right  to  establish  what  government  they  may 
think  proper  for  themselves  ;  that  every  state  ABOUT  to  become  a 
member  of  this  Union  has  a  right  to  FOUM  ITS  owx  GOVERNMENT  AS 
IT  PLEASES  ;  and  that,  in  order  to  be  admitted,  there  is  but  one  quali 
fication,  and  that  is,  that  the  government  shall  be  republican.  There 
is  no  express  provision  to  that  effect,  but  it  results  from  that  impor 
tant  section  which  guaranties  to  every  state  in  this  Union  a  republi 
can  form  of  government." 

Mr.  Senator  Downs,  of  Louisiana,  offered  the  following  resolu 
tion  :  — 

Resolved,  That  it  is  competent  and  expedient,  and  not  inconsistent 
with  the  practice  of  the  government  in  some  cases,  to  admit  Califor 
nia,  or  such  portion  of  it  as  Congress  may  deem  proper,  immediately 
into  the  Union,  on  an  equal  footing  with  the  other  states ;  and  that 
the  committee  on  be  instructed  to  report  a  bill  for  that  pur 
pose,  for  that  portion  of  California  which  lies  west  of  the  summit  of 
the  Sierra  Neveda  mountains." 

The  doctrine  of  these  resolutions  was  fully  indorsed  by  the  Wash 
ington  Union,  speaking,  doubtless,  (for  it  never  spoke  any  thing  else,) 
the  sentiments  of  the  then  administration. 

"The  south  denies  that  Congress  has  any  jurisdiction  over  the 
subject  of  slavery,  and  contends  that  the  people  of  tfa  territories  alone, 
when  they  frame  a  constitution,  preparatory  to  admission  into  the 
Union,  have  a  right  to  speak  and  be  heard  on  that  matter.  This  fact 
being  settled,  it  really  seems  to  us  that  this  exciting  question  might  be, 
speedily  adjusted,  if  calm  counsels  prevail.  The  south  contends  for  her 
honor,  and  for  the  great  principles  of  non-intervention  and  state 


190 

men  !  Within  the  present  week  we  have  had  three  most 
elaborate  speeches  in  this  House,  in  which  the  admis 
sion  of  California,  with  her  free  constitution,  is  vehe 
mently  opposed  on  constitutional  grounds.  Yes,  sir, 
did  you  know  it  ?  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States  has  just  been  altered;  or,  what  is  intended  to 
produce  the  same  effect,  without  the  trouble  of  an 
alteration  in  the  manner  prescribed  by  itself,  its  inter 
pretation  has  been  altered.  While  California  promised 
to  be  a  slave  state,  all  interference  was  unconstitu 
tional.  Now,  as  she  desires  to  be  a  free  state,  it  has 
become  constitutional  to  interfere  and  repel  her.  Not 
only  so,  but,  according  to  the  gentleman  from  Alabama. 
(Mr.  INGE,)  in  swearing  to  support  the  constitution 
we  have  sworn  to  perpetuate,  and  not  only  to  per 
petuate,  but  to  extend  slavery.  "  To  those,"  he  says, 
"  who  are  disposed  to  resist  my  views,  I  commend  a 
more  attentive  reading  of  that  instrument.  They 
will  find  that  it  not  only  guranties  slavery,  but  pro 
vides  for  its  extension."  Or,  as  he  says. in  another 
place,  it  makes  provision  "  to  extend  the  institution 
indefinitely."  And,  therefore,  when  a  territory  asks  to 
be  admitted  as  a  free  state,  it  is  to  be  repulsed,  and 
virtually  told,  "  If  you  will  incorporate  slavery  into 
your  constitution,  you  shall  be  admitted  ;  if  not,  not." 
Had  the  man  who  first  uttered  the  adage  that  "  cir 
cumstances  alter  cases,"  foreseen  our  times,  he  would 
have  said,  "  circumstances  alter  principles.''7 

The  same  gentleman  defends  slavery  by  an  appeal 
to  the  Bible.  But  if  the  Bible  be  authority  for  the 
principal,  is  it  not  authority  for  the  incidents  also  ?  If 

equality.  Why,  then,  cannot  all  unite,  and  permit  California  to  come 
into  the  Union  as  soon  as  she  can  frame  a  constitution  ?  Then,  accord 
ing  to  the  doctrines  which  prevail  on  both  sides  of  Mason's  and 
Dixon's  line,  she  may  constitutionally  establish  her  domestic  institu 
tions  on  any  basis  consistent  with  republican  principles.  The  south 
could  lose  nothing  by  adopting  this  course.  On  the  contrary,  she  would 
save  all  for  which  she  contends." 


191 

an  authority  for  the  cruelties  of  bondage,  is  it  not  an 
equal  authority  for  its  mitigations  ?  Is  not  the  com 
mand  to  "  hallow  the  fiftieth  year,"  as  a  year  of  ju 
bilee,  and  to  "  proclaim  liberty  throughout  all  the  land 
unto  all  the  inhabitants  thereof,"  contained  in  the 
same  code,  and  in  the  same  chapter  of  the  same  code, 
with  that  oft-cited  authority  to  buy  bondmen  and 
bondmaids  of  the  heathen  ?  If  the  Bible  is  your  com 
mission,  why  do  you  not  follow  the  terms  of  the  com 
mission,  observing  its  limitations  as  well  as  its  powers? 
This  is  the  fiftieth  year  of  the  century,  —  the  very 
year  of  jubilee  itself;  and  yet,  instead  of  "returning 
every  man  unto  his  possession,  and  every  man  unto 
his  family,"  this  is  the  chosen  year  for  subjugating 
new  realms  to  bondage.  It  is  not  to  be  "  hallowed," 
as  a  year  of  jubilee,  but  to  be  profaned  as  a  year  of 
captivity  and  mourning. 

Sir,  I  must  express  the  most  energetic  dissent  from 
those  who  would  justify  modern  slavery  from  the  Le- 
vitical  law.  My  reason  and  conscience  revolt  from 
those  interpretations  which 

"  Torture  the  hallowed  pages  of  the  Bible, 

To  sanction  crime,  and  robbery,  and  blood, 
And,  in  oppression's  hateful  service,  libel 
Both  man  and  God." 

Priests  appealed  to  the  Bible  in  Galileo's  time,  to 
refute  the  truths  of  astronomy.  For  more  than  two 
hundred  years,  the  same  class  of  men  appealed  to  the 
same  authority  to  disprove  the  science  of  geology. 
And  now,  this  authority  is  cited,  not  to  disprove  a  law 
of  physical  nature  merely,  but  to  deny  a  great  law  of 
the  human  soul, — a  law  of  human  consciousness, — 
a  law  of  God,  written  upon  the  tablet  of  every  man's 
heart,  authenticating  and  attesting  his  title  to  freedom. 
Sir,  let  those  who  reverence  the  Bible  beware  how 
they  suborn  it  to  commit  this  treason  and  perjury 
against  the  sacred  rights  of  man  and  the  holy  law  of 


192 

God.  Whatever  they  gain  for  the  support  of  their 
doctrine,  will  be  so  much  subtracted  from  the  authority 
of  the  Scriptures.  If  the  Bible  has  crossed  the  Atlantic 
to  spread  slavery  over  a  continent  where  it  was  un 
known  before,  then  the  Bible  is  a  book  of  death,  and 
not  a  book  of  life. 

It  is  further  objected  to  the  admission  of  California, 
that  its  dimensions  are  too  large  for  a  single  state.  The 
force  of  this  objection  is  somewhat  abated  when  we  re 
flect  that  it  comes  from  men  who  were  most  strenuous 
for  the  admission  of  Texas.  However,  I  shall  not  ob 
ject  very  earnestly  to  the  reduction  of  its  limits.  I  will 
say,  in  frankness,  that  the  southern  portion  of  Califor 
nia  is  understood  to  be  even  more  attached  to  freedom 
than  the  northern.  The  result  may,  therefore,  be,  if 
this  objection  is  persisted  in  and  a  division  made,  that 
we  shall  soon  have  two  free  states  instead  of  one.  It 
was  said  by  the  last  administration,  that  Mexico  was 
to  be  dismembered,  in  order  "  to  extend  the  area  of 
freedom."  The  most  just  retribution  for  that  diaboli 
cal  irony  is,  to  carry  out  the  declaration  literally. 

But  I  now  come  to  a  more  substantial  part  of  this 
great  question.  The  south  rests  its  claims  to  the  new 
territory  upon  the  great  doctrine  of  equality.  There 
are  fifteen  slave  states  ;  there  are  only  fifteen  free  states. 
The  south  contributed  men  and  money  for  the  con 
quest,  not  less  than  the  north ;  hence,  equal  ownership 
and  equal  rights  of  enjoyment.  This  is  the  argument. 
In  a  long  and  most  elaborate  speech,  delivered  in  the 
Senate  this  week  by  one  of  the  most  eminent  jurists  in 
the  Southern  States,  (Judge  BERRIEN,)  he  founds  the 
whole  claim  of  the  south  on  this  doctrine  of  equality. 

Now,  I  admit  this  principle  in  its  fullest  extent,  and 
without  hesitation.  That  country  is  equally  free  to  all 
the  people  of  the  United  States.  The  government  can 
sell  the  lands  not  already  covered  by  valid  titles  ;  and 
any  citizen  who  will  comply  with  its  terms  can  buy 


193 

them.  The  people  of  each  of  the  United  States  can  go 
there  and  establish  their  domicile.  The  laws  of  Con 
gress  make  no  discrimination  between  them.  The  con 
stitution  makes  no  such  discrimination.  The  law  of 
nature  and  of  nations  makes  none.  The  north  has  no 
privilege  over  the  south,  and  the  south  has  none  over 
the  north.  If  the  north  has  any  greater  right  there 
than  the  south,  the  equality  is  destroyed.  If  the  south 
has  any  greater  right  there  than  the  north,  the  equality 
is  equally  destroyed. 

And  now,  practically,  what  right  has  the  north,  or 
what  right  is  claimed  by  the  north,  which  the  south  has 
not  to  an  equal  extent  ?  What  article  of  property  can 
a  citizen  of  Massachusetts  carry  there  which  a  citizen 
of  Georgia  can  not  carry  there  ?  Can  we  carry  any  of 
our  local  laws  there  •  even  though  all  the  inhabitants 
of  the  state  should  remove  thither  in  a  body  ?  Cer 
tainly  not.  When  we  leave  our  state,  we  leave  our 
local  laws  behind  us.  A  citizen  of  Boston  has  a  right 
to  educate  his  children  at  school,  at  the  public  expense. 
In  the  Boston  public  schools,  he  can  prepare  his  son  to 
enter  any  college  in  this  country,  even  though  he  is  too 
poor  to  pay  a  cent  for  taxes,  and  never  has  paid  a  cent 
for  taxes.  Has  he  any  such  right  on  arriving  at  San 
Francisco  ?  If  the  city  of  Boston  debars  him  of  this 
right  of  educating  his  son  at  the  public  charge,  he  can 
institute  a  suit  against  it  and  recover  full  damages. 
Can  he  do  the  same  thing  at  San  Francisco  or  San 
Jose  ?  Certainly  not.  He  has  left  the  laws  and  insti 
tutions  of  Massachusetts  behind  him.  But,  it  is  said, 
we  can  carry  our  property  there,  and  you  cannot  carry 
your  property  there.  I  think  those  who  use  this  argu 
ment,  like  the  old  Roman  augurs,  must  smile  at  each 
other  askance,  for  the  credulity  or  simplicity  of  those 
they  beguile  by  it.  Will  not  every  man,  even  of  the 
feeblest  discernment,  see  the  fallacy  which  is  here  cov 
ered  up  under  the  word  " property  ?  "  What  is  meant 
17 


194 


t  ,?"     If  vou  mean  sil- 

s 


call  a  human 


-= 

SedTn  under  the  "*^g^g$&»,  if  a  i»g8»« 
Respectable  village  m  the  c°«'  lm  off  upon  his 
01  mountebank  were  to  attempt  to  P  ^^  be 

audTeuce  so  flimsy  a  ^^S-to  k«ds  °f  Pr,T 


chine,  and  proceeded  to  draw  States,  lotte- 

sachnsetts,  and  in  many  of  J  *  ^  w       u 


195 

act  upon  the  well-known  truth,  that  there  is  a  much 
less  number  of  persons  who  draw  any  considerable 
prize  in  a  lottery,  than  there  are  who  are  killed  by 
lightning;  and  therefore,  whatever  chance  a  ticket- 
holder  has  of  drawing  any  considerable  prize,  we  know 
that  he  has  a  much  greater  chance  of  being  killed  by 
lightning.  Now,  when  a  citizen  of  Virginia  and  a  cit 
izen  of  Massachusetts  go  to  the  new  territories,  does 
the  former  carry  his  right  to  establish  and  draw  a  lot 
tery,  or  the  latter  carry  his  right  to  prosecute  the  other 
for  doing  so?  Neither;  certainly  neither.  Both  have 
left  the  local  law  behind  them.  If  any  state  in  this 
Union  had  adopted  polygamy  as  its  peculiar  institution, 
could  an  inhabitant  of  that  state  take  a  dozen  wives 
with  him  into  the  new  territories,  and  defend  his  claim 
to  live  with  them  there,  because  he  could  do  so  at 
home?  Or,  suppose,  in  pursuance  of  the  "manifest 
destiny  "  principle,  we  should  re-annex  a  part  of  China 
to  this  Union,  could  the  Chinese,  on  removing  to  Cali 
fornia,  carry  the  practice  of  infanticide  with  them  ? 
Just  as  well,  1  answer,  and  on  precisely  the  same  legal 
ground  that  the  south  can  carry  slavery  into  New 
Mexico.  The  reason  is  that  the  law  of  slavery  is  a 
local  law.  Like  lotteries,  or  polygamy,  or  infanticide, 
it  can  legally  exist  in  no  land  where  the  principles  of 
the  common  law  prevail,  until  it  is  legalized  and  sanc 
tioned  by  a  special  law.  Then  it  is  permitted  on  the 
simple  ground  that  so  much  of  the  common  law  as  se 
cures  liberty  and  property,  the  right  of  habeas  corpus 
and  freedom  of  speech  to  each  individual,  has  been  cut 
out  and  cast  away.  The  constitution  proceeds  upon 
this  doctrine  when  it  provides  for  the  recapture  of  fu 
gitive  slaves.  Why  did  it  not  provide  for  the  capture 
of  a  fugitive  horse  or  ox  ?  Why  did  it  not  provide  that, 
if  a  horse  or  an  ox  should  escape  from  a  slave  state  into 
a  free  state,  it  should  be  delivered  up,  or  be  recoverable 
by  legal  process  ?  Because  horses  and  oxen  are  prop- 


196 

crty,  by  the  common  consent  of  mankind.  It  needed 
no  law  to  make  them  property.  They  are  property  by 
the  law  of  nations,  by  the  English  common  law,  by  the 
law  of  every  state  in  this  Union, — while  men  and 
women  are  not.  An  escaped  slave  could  not  be  recov 
ered  before  the  adoption  of  the  constitution.  The 
power  to  seize  upon  escaping  slaves  was  one  of  the 
motives  for  adopting  it.  These  considerations  demon 
strate  that  slaves  are  not  property,  within  the  meaning 
of  this  word,  when  it  is  affirmed  that  if  the  north  can 
carry  its  property  into  the  territories,  so  can  the  south. 
As  the  constitution,  in  terms,  adopts  the  common  law, 
it  leaves  slavery  nothing  to  stand  upon  but  the  local 
laws  of  the  states  where  it  is  established.  Freedom  is 
the  rule,  slavery  is  the  exception.  Judge  Berrien's 
favorite  doctrine  of  equality  would,  therefore,  be  de 
stroyed,  if  the  exception  should  prevail  over  the  rule. 
For,  if  slavery  can  be  carried  into  any  of  our  territories 
by  force  of  the  constitution,  it  can  into  all  of  them  ; 
and  if  carried  into  all  of  them,  the  exception  becomes 
the  rule,  and  the  rule  perishes.  Ay,  the  rule  ceases  to 
be  even  so  much  as  an  exception  to  that  which  was  its 
own  exception.  It  is  wholly  swallowed  up  and  lost. 

I  know  it  is  said  that  the  fact  of  slavery  always 
precedes  the  law  of  slavery  ;  that  law  does  not  go  be 
fore  the  institution  and  create  it,  but  comes  afterwards 
to  sanction  and  regulate  it.  But  this  is  no  more  true 
of  slavery  than  of  every  other  institution  or  practice 
among  mankind,  whether  right  or  wrong.  Homicide 
existed  before  law  ;  the  law  came  in  subsequently,  and 
declared  that  he  who  took  an  innocent  man's  life 
without  law,  should  lose  his  own  by  law.  The  law 
came  in  to  regulate  homicide  ;  to  authorize  the  taking 
of  human  life  for  crime,  just  as  we  authorize  involun 
tary  servitude  for  crime ;  and  it  may  just  as  well  be 
argued  that  murder  is  a  natural  right  because  it  existed 
before  law,  as  that  slavery  is  a  natural  right  because  it 


197 

existed  before  law.  This  argument  appeals  to  the 
crime  which  the  law  was  enacted  to  prevent,  in  order 
to  establish  (lie  supremacy  of  the  crime  over  the  law 
t  It  (it  forbids  it. 

There  is  another  fallacy  in  the  arguments  which 
southern  gentlemen  use  on  this  subject,  which,  though 
not  as  transparent  as  the  preceding,  is  quite  as  unsound. 
They  speak  of  the  rights  of  the  slaveholder  in  the  new 
territories.  They  speak  as  though  the  collective  own 
ership  of  the  territories  by  the  government,  were  the 
ownership  of  the  people  in  severally  ;  as  though  each 
citizen  could  go  there  and  draw  a  line  round  a 
"  placer,"  and  say  this  is  mine  ;  and  then,  because  it 
is  his,  introduce  his  slaves  upon  it.  But  nothing  is 
more  clear  than  that  there  is  no  such  individual  right. 
The  right  of  the  government  is,jirst,  a  right  of  sover 
eignty  and  jurisdiction  ;  and  second,  the  right  of  own 
ership  of  all  lands,  navigable  waters.  &c.,  which  have 
not  been  conveyed  away  by  the  preexisting  government. 
Individuals  retain  their  citizenship  on  going  there,  as 
they  do  on  going  to  Great  Britain,  or  France  ;  but  a 
slave  has  just  as  much  right  to  a  portion  of  the  public 
lands  in  California,  when  he  gets  there,  as  his  master. 

Again  ;  if  the  master  carries  into  California  the  legal 
right  to  hold  slaves,  which  he  possessed  at  home,  does 
not  the  slave  also  retain  his  legal  rights  when  he  is 
transferred  there  ?  The  laws  which  govern  slaves  are 
as  various  as  the  states  where  they  exist.  In  some 
states  manumission  is  comparatively  unobstructed.  In 
Delaware,  it  is  a  penal  offence  even  to  sell  a  slave  to  a 
notorious  slavedealer.  In  Georgia,  the  law  forbids,  or 
lately  forbade,  the  importation  of  slaves  for  sale.  Now, 
how  can  a  Georgian  import  slaves  into  California  from 
Georgia,  when  the  very  laws  of  his  own  state,  under 
which  he  claims  to  hold  slaves,  and  under  which  laws 
he  claims  to  carry  slaves  with  him,  forbid  their  im 
portation  ? 

17* 


198 

And  further,  political  franchises  or  privileges  are 
just  as  much  a  part  of  a  man's  rights  as  any  tangible 
commodity.  In  South  Carolina,  the  ownership  of  ten 
slaves  constitutes  a  property  qualification  for  being  a 
member  of  the  legislature.  On  removing  to  Califor 
nia,  will  the  citizen  of  South  Carolina,  who  owns  ten 
slaves,  carry  an  eligibility  to  the  legislature  of  Cali 
fornia  with  him  ?  Nay,  this  political  privilege  in 
South  Carolina  goes  further.  It  is  a  right  in  every 
owner  of  ten  slaves,  that  no  man  who  does  not  own 
ten  slaves,  (or  some  legal  equivalent,)  shall  be  a  mem 
ber  of  the  legislature.  The  aspirant  for  office  has  a 
legal  right  in  the  limitation  of  the  number  of  his  com 
petitors,  as  much  as  in  any  thing  else.  Can  he  carry 
this  to  California  with  him?  The  inference  is  inevi 
table,  that  if  the  inhabitants  of  the  fifteen  slave  states 
can  carry  slaves  into  California  by  virtue  of  the  laws 
of  their  respective  states,  then  they  must  also  carry  all 
the  incidents  of  slavery  known  to  their  respective 
codes.  For,  how  can  the  incident  be  separated  from 
the  principal  ?  You  might,  therefore,  have,  in  a  neigh 
borhood  of  fifteen  families,  fifteen  slave  codes  in  oper 
ation  at  the  same  time,  — a  manifest  absurdity. 

The  conclusion,  then,  is  irresistible,  that  when  you 
come  to  the  boundary  line  between  a  slave  state  and  a 
free  state,  you  come  to  the  boundary  line  of  slavery 
itself.  On  one  side  of  the  line,  down  to  the  nadir  and 
up  to  the  zenith,  the  blackness  of  the  slave  code  per 
vades  all  things ;  but,  on  the  other  side,  as  high  above 
and  as  deep  below,  is  the  purity  of  freedom.  Virginia 
cannot  extend  her  laws  one  hair's  breadth  over  the  line 
into  Pennsylvania  or  into  Ohio,  because  their  soil  is 
beyond  her  jurisdiction.  So  neither  Virginia,  nor  all 
the  fifteen  slave  states  combined,  can  extend  their 
slave  laws  one  hair's  breadth  into  the  new  territories  ; 
and  for  the  same  reason,  —  the  territories  are  beyond 
their  jurisdiction. 


199 

As  to  the  argument  that  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States  recognizes  slavery,  and  that,  upon  the 
cession  of  new  territories,  the  constitution,  by  some 
magical  and  incomprehensible  elasticity,  extends  itself 
over  them,  and  carries  slavery  into  them,  I  think  I 
speak  with  all  due  respect  when  I  say  it  does  not  come 
up  to  the  dignity  of  a  sophism.  Where  do  strict  con- 
structionists,  or  even  latitudinarian  constructionists, 
find  any  clause,  or  phrase,  or  word,  which  shows  that 
the  constitution  is  any  thing  but  a  compact  between 
states  ?  Where  do  they  find  any  thing  that  shows  it 
to  be  a  compact  between  territories,  or  between  terri 
tories  and  states  conjoined?  On  its  very  face,  the 
constitution  meets  this  pretension  with  a  denial.  The 
preamble  declares,  "  We  the  people  of  the  United 
States,"  —  not  the  people  of  the  territories,  nor  the 
people  of  the  states  and  territories,  —  "  in  order  to  form 
a  more  perfect  Union,"  —  "  do  ordain  and  establish 
this  constitution  for  the  United  States  of  America." 
If  the  constitution  is  a  compact  between  the  United 
States  and  the  territories,  then  the  people  of  the  terri 
tories  have  all  the  rights  under  it  which  the  people  of 
the  states  have,  —  the  right  to  choose  electors  for  Pres 
ident  and  Vice-President,  &c.,  and  to  be  represented 
in  Congress  by  a  member  who  can  vote  as  well  as 
speak.  The  only  way  in  which  the  constitution  ever 
was  extended,  or  ever  can  be  extended  over  any  part 
of  the  earth's  surface  outside  of  the  "  original  thirteen," 
is  this  :  The  constitution  in  express  terms  authorizes 
the  admission  of  new  states,  and  therefore,  when  a 
new  state  is  admitted,  it  becomes  one  of  these  "  United 
States  of  America."  The  constitution  does  not  ex 
tend  over  the  territories,  but  Congress,  being  the  crea 
ture  of  the  constitution,  is,  when  legislating  for  the 
territories,  not  only  invested  with  constitutional  pow 
ers,  but  is  limited  by  constitutional  restrictions. 

It  would  have  been  a  much  more  plausible  preten- 


200 

sion,  when  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  and  Florida  was 
made,  that  the  constitution  carried  freedom  into  those 
territories  ;  because  the  constitution  was  built  upon  the 
basis  of  the  common  law,  and,  in  terms,  adopts  the 
common  law  for  its  legal  processes  and  its  rules  of  ju 
dicial  interpretation  ;  and  every  body  knows  that  there 
is  no  principle  more  dear  to  the  common  law  than  that 
all  treaties,  statutes,  and  customs  shall  be  construed  in 
favor  of  life  and  in  favor  of  liberty. 

Having,  as  I  trust,  refuted  the  argument  of  the 
slaveholder,  that  the  prohibition  of  slavery  in  the  ter 
ritories  is  an  act  of  injustice  to  his  rights,  I  will  con 
sider  his  next  assertion,  that  it  is  an  insult  to  his  feel 
ings.  We  are  told  that  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from 
the  territories  is  an  affront  to  the  honorable  sensi 
bilities  of  the  south  ;  and  that  acquiescence  in  this 
exclusion  would  involve  their  dishonor  and  degrada 
tion. 

There  are  two  answers  to  this  complaint.  The 
first  is,  that  among  gentlemen,  no  insult  is  ever  offered 
where  none  is  intended.  There  may  be  heedlessness 
of  conduct,  there  may  be  an  unintentional  wounding 
of  sensibilities ;  but  there  can  be  no  affront  where  the 
design  to  affront  is  wanting.  He  is  not  a  gentleman, 
but  a  poltroon  and  a  braggart,  who  pretends  he  is  in 
sulted  and  proceeds  to  retaliate  for  the  affront,  when 
all  insult  and  all  affront  are  sincerely  disclaimed.  Now, 
it  is  infinitely  far  from  the  purpose  of  the  north  to 
offer  any  indignity  to  the  south  by  excluding  slavery 
from  the  territories.  Their  hostility  to  slavery  grows 
out  of  an  honest  allegiance  to  what  they  believe  to  be 
the  highest  moral  and  religious  duty  ;  it  is  fortified  by 
the  opinions  of  mankind  ;  and  is  perfectly  compatible 
with  the  most  fraternal  feelings  towards  the  south. 
They  wish  to  expostulate,  in  regard  to  the  wrong,  in 
such  a  way  as  to  arrest  the  wrong,  and  not,  by  inflam 
ing  the  wrongdoer,  to  increase  the  evil.  However 


20 1 

erroneous,  then,  their  language  or  their  sentiments  may 
be,  they  are  not  affrontive  nor  contumelious  ;  and,  when 
all  such  purpose  is  disavowed,  those  who  aspire  to 
stand  on  the  footing  of  gentlemen  cannot  reiterate  the 
charge. 

But  there  is  another  consideration,  —  one  which  ap 
pertains  to  the  party  supposed  to  be  insulted,  rather 
than  the  party  charged  with  the  insult.  In  his  "  The 
ory  of  Moral  Sentiments,"  Adam  Smith  maintains  that 
it  is  the  judgment  of  men,  —  the  opinion  of  the  by 
standers, —  that  gives  us  the  pleasure  of  being  ap 
proved,  or  the  pain  of  being  disapproved,  on  account 
of  our  conduct.  Now,  in  this  contest  between  the 
north  and  the  south,  on  the  subject  of  extending 
slavery,  who  are  the  bystanders  ?  They  are  the  civil 
ized  nations  of  the  earth.  We,  the  north  and  the  south, 
are  contending  in  the  arena.  All  civilized  men  stand 
around  us.  They  are  a  ring  of  lookers-on.  It  is  an 
august  spectacle.  It  is  a  larger  assemblage  than  ever 
witnessed  any  other  struggle  in  the  history  of  mankind  ; 
and  their  shouts  of  approbation  or  hisses  of  scorn  are 
worthy  of  our  heed.  And  what  do  these  spectators 
say,  in  the  alternations  of  the  combat  ?  Do  they  urge 
on  the  south  to  mightier  efforts,  to  the  wider  spread  of 
slavery,  and  the  multiplication  of  its  victims?  Do 
they  shout  when  she  triumphs?  When  new  chains 
are  forged  and  riveted,  when  new  realms  are  subdued 
by  haughty  taskmasters,  and  overrun  by  imbruted 
slaves,  do  their  plaudits  greet  your  ears  and  rouse  you 
to  more  vehement  efforts?  All  the  reverse;  totally 
the  reverse.  They  are  now  looking  on  with  disgust 
and  abhorrence.  They  groan,  they  mock,  they  hiss. 
The  brightest  pages  of  their  literature  portray  you,  as 
covered  with  badges  of  dishonor ;  their  orators  hold 
up  your  purposes  as  objects  for  the  execration  of  man 
kind  ;  their  wits  hurl  the  lightnings  of  satire  at  your 
leaders;  their  statute  books  abound  in  laws  in  which 


202 


?ike  yours  are  branded  as  crimes;  their 
moralists,  iicin  their  high  and  serene  seats  of  justice, 
arraign  and  condemn  yon  ;  their  theologians  find  your 
doom  ot  iv,:ribntion  in  the  oracles  of  God.  England 
has  abolished  slavery.  France,  in  one  fervid  moment  of 
liberty,  struck  the  chains  from  oft'  all  her  slaves,  as  the 
bonds  of  Paul  and  Silas  were  loosed  in  the  inner  prison 
by  the  mighty  power  of  God.  Sweden  has  abolished 
it.  More  than  twenty  years  ago,  impotent,  half-civil 
ized  Mexico  did  the  same.  Tunis,  a  Barbary  state, 
and,  I  might  add,  a  barbarous  state,  has  abolished 
slavery.  Mahometanism  precedes  Christianity,  and  sets 
it  an  example  of  virtue.  Liberia,  a  republic  of  eman 
cipated  slaves,  the  very  brothers  and  sisters  of  those 
whom  you  now  hold  in  bondage,  has  been  acknowl 
edged  as  an  independent  sovereignty,  and  welcomed 
into  the  family  of  nations,  by  two  of  the  most  power 
ful  governments  on  the  globe.  By  this  act,  freedom 
secures  a  new  domain  on  the  eastern  continent,  while 
you  are  striving  to  give  a  new  domain  to  bondage  on 
the  western.  A  monarchy  hails  the  advent  of  a  free 
nation  in  Africa,  where  slavery  existed  before  ;  a  re 
public  is  seeking  to  create  ten  thousand  absolute  des 
potisms  in  America,  where  freedom  existed  before. 

Now,  these  are  the  bystanders  and  lookers-on  in  this 
grand  and  awful  contestation.  They  are  all  agreed,  as 
one  man,  in  their  opinions  about  it.  They  are  uni 
tedly  visiting  your  course  with  execration  and  anath 
ema.  There  is  not  a  nation  on  the  globe,  that  has  a 
printing  press  and  a  people  that  can  read,  from  which 
you  can  extort  one  token  of  approval.  I  would  agree 
to  submit  the  question  now  at  issue  between  the  north 
and  the  south  to  the  arbitrament  of  any  people  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  not  absolutely  savage,  and  to 
abide  its  decision.  Nay,  the  wild  tribes  of  the  Cau 
casus  and  of  Upper  India,  who  have  defended  them 
selves  so  nobly  against  aggression,  would  spurn  your 


203 

claim  and  deride  its  pretexts.  And  yet  you  say  you 
are  insulted,  dishonored,  disgraced  in  the  eyes  of  man 
kind,  if  you  are  not  permitted  to  bring  down  upon  our 
heads,  also,  the  curses  they  are  pouring  upon  yours. 
So  far  is  this  from  truth,  that  if  you  would  promptly 
and  cheerfully  consecrate  the  new  territories  to  free 
dom,  every  nation  in  the  world  would  send  their  plau 
dits  of  your  conduct  to  the  skies. 

But  gentlemen  of  the  south  not  only  argue  the  ques 
tion  of  right  and  of  honor ;  they  go  further,  and  they 
tell  us  what  they  will  proceed  to  do  if  we  do  not  yield 
to  their  demands.  A  large  majority  of  the  southern 
legislatures  have  solemnly  "  resolved  "  that  if  Congress 
prohibits  slavery  in  the  new  territories,  they  will  resist 
the  law  "at  any  and  at  every  hazard."  And  yet  they 
say  they  do  not  mean  to  threaten  us.  They  desire  to 
abstain  from  all  language  of  menace,  for  threats  and 
menaces  are  beneath  the  character  of  gentlemen.  Sir, 
what  is  the  meaning  of  the  terms  "  threats  "  and 
"menaces?  "  Mr.  Troup,  formerly  governor  of  Geor 
gia,  speaking  of  us  who  are  upon  this  floor,  and  of  oth 
ers  who  resist  the  extension  of  slavery,  calls  each  of  us  a 
"fanatic."  He  says  that  it  is  only  the  dread  of  death 
that  will  stay  our  hands  or  stop  our  machinations  ;  and 
then  adds,  "  THAT  DREAD  YOU  MUST  PRESENT  TO  HIM 
IN  A  VISIBLE,  PALPABLE  FORM."  "  If,"  he  says  in  an- 
other  place,  "  the  abolitionists  resolve  to  force  emanci 
pation,  or  to  force  dishonor  upon  the  southern  states  by 
any  act  of  Congress,  then  it  is  my  decided  opinion 
that,  with  the  military  preparation  here  indicated,  con 
joined  to  a  good  volunteer  instead  of  a  militia  system, 

THE  STATE  SHOULD  MARCH  UPON  WASHINGTON  AND  DIS 
SOLVE  THE  GOVERNMENT."  The  gentleman  from  North 
Carolina,  [Mr.  CLINGMAN,]  forewarns  us  that  if  certain 
measures,  — and  they  are  legal  and  constitutional  meas 
ures  which  he  indicates,  — are  taken  in  order  to  carry 
on  the  business  of  legislation  in  this  House?  the  House 


204 

itself  shall  be  the  "  Lexington  "  of  a  new  revolution, 
and  that  "  such  a  struggle  would  not  leave  a  quorum 
to  do  business."  I  could  occupy  my  hour  in  citing 
passages  of  a  similar  character  from  the  southern  press 
and  from  southern  men.  Now,  if  these  are  not  threats, 
—  threats  most  gross,  flagrant,  and  offensive,  —  I  know 
not  the  meaning  of  the  word.  Perhaps  those  who 
utter  such  sentiments  are  only  practising  an  inversion 
of  language  equal  to  their  inversion  of  ideas  on  this 
subject,  and  would  call  them  "enticements  ;  "  like  the 
sailor,  who  said  he  was  enticed  to  join  a  mutiny,  and 
being  asked  what  arts  had  been  used  to  entice  him, 
said  that  the  ringleader  sprang  at  him  with  a  handspike, 
and  swore  if  he  did  not  join  it  he  would  knock  out 
his  brains. 

And  do  those  gentlemen  who  make  these  threats 
soberly  consider  how  deeply  they  are  pledging  them 
selves  and  their  constituents  by  them?  Threats  of 
dissolution,  if  executed,  become  rebellion  and  treason. 
The  machinery  of  this  government  is  now  moving 
onward  in  its  majestic  course.  Custom-houses,  post- 
offices,  land-offices,  army,  navy,  are  fulfilling  their 
prescribed  circle  of  duties.  They  will  continue  to 
fulfil  them  until  arrested  by  violence.  Should  the 
hand  of  violence  be  laid  upon  them,  then  will  come 
that  exigency  expressly  provided  for  in  the  constitution 
and  in  the  President's  inaugural  oath,  "  TO  TAKE  CARE 

THAT      THE      LAWS      BE      FAITHFULLY      EXECUTED."        Mr. 

Chairman,  such  collision  would  be  war.  Such  forcible 
opposition  to  the  government  would  be  treason.  Its 
agents  and  abettors  would  be  traitors.  Wherever  this 
rebellion  rears  its  crest,  martial  law  will  be  proclaimed; 
and  those  found  with  hostile  arms  in  their  hands  must 
prepare  for  the  felon's  doom. 

Sir,  I  cannot  contemplate  this  spectacle  without  a 
thrill  of  horror.  If  the  two  sections  of  this  country 
ever  marshal  themselves  against  each  other,  and  their 


205 

squadrons  rush  to  the  conflict,  it  will  be  a  war  carried 
on  by  such  powers  o£  intellect,  animated  by  such  ve 
hemence  of  passion,  and  sustained  by  such  an  abun 
dance  of  resources,  as  the  world  has  never  before  wit 
nessed.  "  Ten  foreign  wars,"  it  has  been  well  said, 
"are  a  luxury  compared  with  one  civil  war."  But  I 
turn  from  this  scene  with  a  shudder.  If,  in  the  retrib 
utive  providence  of  God,  the  volcano  of  civil  war 
should  ever  burst  upon  us,  it  will  be  amid  thunderings 
above,  and  earthquakes  below,  and  darkness  around  ; 
and  when  that  darkness  is  lifted  up,  we  shall  see  this 
once  glorious  union,  —  this  oneness  of  government, 
under  which  we  have  been  prospered  and  blessed  as 
Heaven  never  prospered  and  blessed  any  other  people, 
—  rifted  in  twain  from  east  to  west,  with  a  gulf  be 
tween  us  wide  and  profound,  save  that  this  gulf  will 
be  filled  and  heaped  high  with  the  slaughtered  bodies 
of  our  countrymen  ;  and  when  we  reawaken  to  con 
sciousness,  we  shall  behold  the  garments  and  the  hands 
of  the  survivors  red  with  fratricidal  blood. 

And  what  is  the  object  for  which  we  are  willing  to 
make  this  awful  sacrifice  ?  Is  it  to  redeem  a  realm  to 
freedom?  No  !  But  to  subjugate  a  realm  to  slavery. 
Is  it  to  defend  the  rights  of  man  ?  No  !  But  to  abolish 
the  rights  of  man  ! 

Mr.  BOWDON.  Does  not  the  gentleman  think  that 
such  a  picture  as  he  has  drawn  would  induce  the  north 
to  yield  a  portion  of  the  new  territories  to  the  institu 
tion  of  slavery  ? 

Mr.  MANN.  I  trust  that  no  pictures  and  no  realities 
will  ever  induce  us  to  extend  slavery  beyond  its  pres 
ent  limits.  Beyond  those  limits,  "  No  more  slave  ter 
ritories,  no  more  slave  states,"  is  the  doctrine  by  which 
I,  for  one,  shall  live  and  die. 

Now,  sir,  as  this  event  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union 
is  so  frequently  forced  upon  our  contemplation,  I  pro 
pose  to  occupy  the  residue  of  my  hour  in  considering 
18 


206 

some  of  its  more  obvious  consequences.  Southern 
papers  and  southern  resolution  writers  have  a  favorite 
phrase,  that  if  Congress  shall  pass  any  law  against  the 
extension  of  slavery,  they  will  resist  it  "  at  any  arid 
every  hazard."  Let  us  inquire,  soberly,  what  a  few 
of  these  hazards  are  :  — 

First,  as  to  the  recovery,  or  non-recovery,  of  fugi 
tive  slaves,  which  is  one  of  the  alleged  provocatives 
of  dissolution.  Take  a  map  of  the  Southern  States 
and  spread  it  out  before  you.  Although  they  cover 
an  area  of  about  nine  hundred  thousand  square  miles, 
yet  it  is  a  very  remarkable  fact,  that  only  an  insignifi 
cantly  small  portion  of  this  vast  extent  lies  more  than 
two  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from  a  free  frontier  ;  and 
those  parts  which  do  lie  beyond  this  distance  hold  but 
few  slaves.  Those  portions  of  North  Carolina,  South 
Carolina,  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  Tennessee,  where 
their  upper  boundaries  converge  among  the  mountains, 
are  a  little  more  than  this  distance  from  a  free  border ; 
but  this  territory  is  relatively  insignificant  in  size,  arid 
sparsely  populated  with  slaves.  An  outside  belt  or 
border  region  of  the  slave  states,  no  part  of  which 
shall  be  more  than  one  hundred  miles  from  a  free 
frontier,  would  embrace  nearly  one  half  of  their  whole 
area ;  and,  as  I  suppose,  much  more  than  one  half  of 
their  whole  slave  population.  What  is  to  prevent  the 
easy  escape  of  slaves  living  within  these  limits  ?  While 
God  sends  nights  upon  the  earth,  nothing  can  prevent  it. 
I  venture  to  predict,  that  in  such  a  state  of  things,  slaves 
will  become  cheap,  and  horses  will  become  dear.  I 
am  aware  of  your  laws  which  forbid  slaves  to  cross 
bridges  or  ferries,  without  a  pass ;  but  you  can  have 
no  law  against  seasons  of  low  water.  The  old  adage 
says,  "riches  have  wings."  You  will  find  that  these 
riches  have  legs.  The  Mississippi  and  Ohio  Rivers, 
where  they  border  upon  free  states,  will  be  alive  as  with 
shoals  of  porpoises.  Remember  there  is  no  constitution 


301 

of  the  United  States  now.  That  you  have  broken, 
The  free  states  are  therefore  absolved  from  all  ob 
ligation  to  surrender  fugitives.  The  law  of  1793  is 
at  an  end.  No  action  can  be  maintained  for  aiding 
them  to  escape,  nor  for  harboring  or  concealing  them. 
The  distinguished  senator  from  Kentucky,  [Mr.  CLAY,] 
said,  in  his  late  speech,  that  no  instance  had  ever  come 
to  his  knowledge  where  an  action  for  harboring  run 
aways  had  not  been  maintained  in  the  courts  of  the 
free  states,  and  damages  recovered.  But  this  remedy 
you  will  have  annulled.  The  constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  law  of  1793,  being  at  an  end, 
the  law  of  nature  revives.  By  this  law,  every  case 
of  an  escaping  slave  is  but  the  self-recovery  of  stolen 
goods.  When  they  cross  the  line  into  a  free  state, 
they  are  free,  —  as  free  as  you  or  I.  The  states  being 
separated,  I  would  as  soon  return  my  own  brother  or 
sister  into  bondage,  as  I  would  return  a  fugitive  slave. 
Before  God,  and  Christ,  and  all  Christian  men,  they 
are  my  brothers  and  sisters.  As  our  laws  make  it  pi 
racy  to  kidnap  slaves  in  Africa,  or  to  ship  them  thence, 
so  it  shall  be  a  felony,  punishable  with  death,  for  any 
southern  master  to  kidnap  a  colored  man,  in  a  free 
state,  or  transport  him  from  it,  on  the  ground  of  alleged 
ownership.  Yon  are  fond  of  quoting  Scripture  to  us, 
in  justification  of  slavery.  We  will  retort  the  Scrip 
ture,  that  "  he  that  stealeth  a  man,  and  selleth  him,  or 
if  he  be  found  in  his  hand,  he  shall  surely  be  put  to 
death." 

Here,  then,  is  a  free  land  frontier  of  about  two 
thousand  miles,  and  a  free  ocean  frontier  of  about 
twenty-five  hundred  miles  :  and  more  than  one  half 
of  all  your  slaves  are  within  two  days'  run  of  it. 
More  than  one  quarter  of  them  are  within  one  night's 
run  of  it.  Thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  can 
escape,  even  while  you  are  dining.  Canada,  now  so 
distant,  is  brought  five  hundred  miles  nearer.  The 


208 

under-ground  railroad  will  be  abandoned,  and  its  stock 
so  invested  as  to  yield  quicker  returns.  What  facilities 
for  escape,  too,  will  the  ocean  present.  Fleets  of  ves 
sels  are  constantly  passing  and  repassing  within  a  few 
hours'  sail  of  the  coast.  The  day  for  the  power  and  the 
triumph  of  those  whom  you  hate  as  abolitionists  will 
have  arrived.  Steamboats  could  lie  out  of  sight  of 
land  in  the  day  time,  run  in  at  night,  and  be  out  of 
sight  again  before  the  rising  of  the  sun.  To  guard 
twenty-five  hundred  miles  of  coast  is  impossible.  If 
you  declare  war  in  order  to  avenge  your  losses,  then 
that  war  makes  your  coast  lawfully  accessible  both  by 
day  and  by  night,  and  multiplies  a  hundred  fold  the 
opportunities  and  facilities  for  this  self-recovery  of 
stolen  goods. 

I  know  it  is  said  that  some  of  the  Northern  States 
are  averse  to  the  reception  of  blacks.  Let  us  ana 
lyze  this  idea.  There  are  now  by  estimation  three 
millions  of  slaves.  Say  one  half  of  these  are  either 
too  old  or  too  young  to  have  the  strength  or  the  intel 
ligence  to  escape.  A  million  and  a  half  are  left  ;  five 
hundred  thousand  of  these  will  have  attachments  to 
their  own  parents  or  children,  or  to  their  masters,  too 
strong  to  be  broken  ;  or  they  may  be  so  degraded  as  to 
be  contented  with  bondage  ;  for  their  contentment  is 
always  one  of  the  measures  of  their  degradation.  This 
would  leave  a  million  for  fugitives,  consisting  wholly 
of  the  most  able  bodied  and  intelligent.  The  Northern 
States  comprise  a  territory  of  five  hundred  thousand 
square  miles.  A  million  of  escaped  slaves  would  give 
but  two  to  a  square  mile,  and  this  surely  would  not  be 
a  formidable  number,  even  where  col  or  phobia  is 
strongest.  Suppose  the  case  of  a  family  of  fourteen 
slaves,  —  two  grandparents,  too  decrepit  for  labor,  six 
athletic  sons  or  daughters,  and  six  grand  children.  What 
but  affection  should  prevent  the  able-bodied  and  the 
profitable  from  escaping,  and  leaving  the  aged  and  the 


209 

young  on  their  masters'  hands.  Affection,  indeed, 
would  bind  the  parents  to  their  children,  but  they 
know  too  well  how  often  this  bond  is  remorselessly 
broken  by  the  master;  and,  besides,  an  enlightened 
affection  would  look  to  future  children  and  their  pos 
terity  forever,  as  well  as  to  those  they  already  have. 

Will  you  make  your  laws  horribly  penal,  in  order  to 
deter  slaves  from  escaping  by  fear?  Will  you  mutilate 
them,  or  scourge  them  till  within  a  minute  of  death  ? 
Do  so.  All  such  punishments  not  only  nourish  the 
love  of  freedom,  but  breed  the  purpose  of  revenge  ; 
and  it  is  a  kind  of  lesson  which  a  brutalized  nature  is 
always  prone  to  retaliate  with  improvements.  Will 
you  make  the  act  of  escape  a  capital  offence  in  a  slave, 
and  destroy  the  victim  you  cannot  restrain  ?  Do  so. 
Though  you  may  inflict  death  in  a  paroxysm  of  wrath, 
yet  of  all  your  penal  dispensations  it  is  the  most  mer 
ciful.  It  not  only  releases  the  slave  himself,  but  is  a 
prospective  and  perpetual  amnesty,  —  a  true  act  of  ob 
livion. —  for  all  his  descendants.  But  this  extremity 
of  punishment  is  not  likely  to  be  resorted  to.  In  look 
ing  over  the  criminal  codes  of  the  slave  states,  I  think 
I  have  noted  cases  where  the  slave  is  not  punished 
with  death  for  an  offence  for  which  a  white  man  is. 
The  value  moderates  the  vengeance.  There  are  not 
many  who,  like  Cleopatra,  can  afford  to  dissolve  a  pearl 
in  the  cup  of  revenge,  and  swallow  it  at  a  draught, 
when  that  pearl  will  command  five  hundred  or  a  thou 
sand  dollars  in  the  market-place. 

Southern  gentlemen,  when  they  threaten  disunion, 
cannot  surely  be  so  much  at  fault  as  to  forget  that  sla 
very  exists  here  as  it  never  existed  before  in  the  world. 
In  Greece  there  were  slaves;  —  in  some  cases,  highly 
intelligent  and  accomplished  slaves.  They  could  have 
escaped  if  they  would ;  but  where  should  they  escape 
to?  All  coterminous  nations, — the  whole  circle 
round,  —  were  barbarians.  These  slaves,  therefore, 
18* 


210 

had  no  place  to  flee  to,  where  better  institutions  and 
juster  laws  prevailed.  So  it  was  with  Rome.  Whith 
er  could  her  slaves  fly  but  to  barbarous  Spain,  or  more 
barbarous  Gaul,  or  to  some  nation  whose  language  they 
did  not  understand.  Ignorance  of  language  is  a  more 
insuperable  barrier  than  mountains  or  oceans.  It  is 
just  the  reverse  here.  The  English  language  is 
spoken  on  all  sides  ;  and  our  slave  land  is  encircled  by 
free  land  or  free  ocean,  —  Jamaica,  the  Bermudas,  and 
two  thousand  miles  of  northern  frontier.  And  I  have 
lately  seen  an  estimate  from  a  credible  source,  that  if 
an  inter-oceanic  canal  should  be  opened  across  the  Isth 
mus  of  Darien,  twelve  hundred  ships  would  annually 
pass  through  it ;  and,  as  they  sail  to  and  fro.  they  will 
skirt  the  whole  of  your  gulf  coast,  and  the  whole  of 
your  Atlantic  coast,  a  great  part  of  the  voyage  being 
within  sight,  or  within  a  day's  sail,  of  your  shores. 
Now,  the  ignorant  slave  knows  but  little  of  geography, 
but  he  would  know  of  these  avenues  to  freedom,  and 
nothing  but  death  could  extinguish  such  knowledge 
and  the  hopes  it  would  inspire.  I  say,  sir,  under  such 
circumstances,  slavery  would  melt  away  upon  your 
borders  like  an  iceberg  in  the  tropics.  The  particles, 
that  is,  the  individuals  of  the  exposed  surface,  would 
disappear  ;  and  you  might  as  well  attempt  to  stop  solar 
evaporation  by  statutory  laws,  as  to  prevent  their  es 
cape.  Perhaps  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  is  the  means 
foreordained  by  God  for  the  extinction  of  slavery  ;  and 
did  I  not  foresee  its  doom  before  any  very  long  period 
shall  have  elapsed,  without  the  unspeakable  horrors  of 
a  civil  and  a  servile  war,  I  cannot  say  to  what  con 
clusion  the  above  considerations  would  lead  my  own 
mind. 

Having  shown  how  the  "  redress  "  of  disunion  will 
operate  upon  one  of  the  grievances  alleged  as  its  mo 
tive  and  excuse.,  let  us  look  at  another  of  those  "  haz 
ards,"  whose  list,  of  indefinite  length,  the  south  is  so 


211 

willing  to  brave.  In  case  of  rebellion  or  secession,  to 
whom  will  the  territories  belong?  It  is  the  rule  of 
political  as  well  as  of  municipal  law,  that  whoever  re- 
tiros  from  a  community,  leaves  its  common  property 
behind  him.  I  have  a  direct  interest  and  proprietor 
ship  in  the  church  in  my  parish,  in  the  ac  hoot  house 
in  my  town,  and  in  the  state-house  and  other  public 
property  belonging  to  my  state.  But  if  I  expatriate 
myself,  I  leave  all  that  interest  and  proprietorship  be 
hind  me.  If  the  county  of  Brooke,  in  Virginia,  should 
secede  from  the  State  of  Virginia,  and  should  annex 
itself  to  Ohio  or  Pennsylvania,  no  one  doubts  that  it 
would  forfeit  all  its  rights  to  whatever  public  property 
the  Slate  of  Virginia  possesses.  In  like  manner,  if  the 
"United  States  South" — as  the  new  confederacy  has 
already  been  named  by  the  "Richmond  Enquirer,"  — 
should  secede,  they  would,  by  the  very  act  of  seces 
sion,  surrender  and  abandon  all  right,  title,  and  interest 
in  the  new  territories.  By  such  secession-,  all  their 
citizens  become  foreigners.  They  have  no  rights  un 
der  the  treaty  with  Mexico.  The  new  Spanish  citi 
zen,  whose  allegiance  was  transferred  by  the  treaty 
with  Mexico,  and  whose  citizenship  is  not  yet  two 
years  old,  would  have  a  right  to  expel  them.  The 
"  United  States  South,"  it  is  true,  may  declare  war, 
and  attempt  the  conquest  of  the  territories  by  force  ; 
but  in  such  a  contest,  the  army  and  navy  and  military 
stores  of  the  government,  which,  also,  they  have  lost 
by  secession,  will  be  turned  against  them.  But,  I 
venture  to  prophesy,  that  if  the  slave  states  shall  pass 
through  one  war,  single-handed,  they  will  afterwards 
be  the  most  peaceable  nation  the  world  ever  saw.  To 
every  frontier  country  and  to  every  naval  power,  they 
have  given  three  millions  of  hostages  for  their  good 
behavior. 

Let  us  look  at  a  third  grievance  they  mean  to  re 
dress,  and  a  third  "  hazard  "  they  are  ready  to  enconn- 


212 

ter.  They  complain  of  northern  agitation  on  the  sub 
ject  of  slavery,  and  northern  instigation  of  the  slaves 
themselves.  On  the  subject  of  "  agitation,"  I  deny- 
that  the  north  has  ever  overstepped  the  limits  of  their 
constitutional  rights.  They  have  never  agitated  the 
question  of  slavery  in  the  states.  It  has  been  only  in 
regard  to  slavery  in  this  District,  or  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  or  the  acquisition  of  territory  for  the  extension 
of  slavery,  or  the  imprisonment  of  her  own  citizens  in 
southern  ports,  or  a  denial  of  the  inviolable  right  of 
petition  ; — it  has  been  only  on  such  subjects  that  the 
north  has  lifted  up  the  voice  of  expostulation  and  re 
monstrance.  Even  these  constitutional  rights  she  has 
used  forbearing! y.  She  has  never  exerted  force,  nor 
threatened  force,  either  to  maintain  the  right  of  peti 
tion  or  to  liberate  her  own  citizens  imprisoned  in  south 
ern  jails. 

In  regard  to  instigating  slaves  to  escape,  I  acknowl 
edge  there  have  been  some  instances  of  it ;  but  they 
have  been  few.  The  perpetrators  have  been  tried  and 
severely  punished,  and  the  north  has  acquiesced  :  for 
they  acknowledge  that,  if  a  man  will  go  into  a  slave 
state  and  violate  its  laws,  he  must  be  judged  by  them. 
But  I  have  never  known  of  a  single  case,  —  I  believe 
there  is  no  well-authenticated  case  on  record,  —  where 
a  northern  man  has  instigated  the  slaves  to  rise  in 
rebellion,  and  to  retaliate  upon  their  masters  for  the 
wrongs  which  they,  and  their  race  have  suffered.  As 
I  dread  indiscriminate  massacre  and  conflagration,  I 
should  abhor  the  perpetrator  of  such  a  crime.  But 
will  separation  bring  relief  or  security  ?  No,  sir ;  it 
will  enhance  the  danger  a  myriad  fold.  Thousands 
will  start  up,  who  will  think  it  as  much  a  duty  and  an 
honor  to  assist  the  slaves  in  any  contest  with  their 
masters,  as  to  assist  Greeks,  or  Poles,  or  Hungarians, 
in  resisting  their  tyrants.  Two  things  exist  at  the 
north  which  the  south  does  not  duly  appreciate,  —  the 


213 

depth  and  intensity  of  our  abhorrence  of  slavery,  and 
that  reverence  for  the  law  which  keeps  it  in  check. 
The  latter  counterpoises  the  former.  We  are  a  law- 
abiding  people.  But  release  us  from  our  obligations, 
tear  olF  from  the  bond  with  your  own  hands  the  signa 
tures  which  bind  our  consciences  and  repress  our  feel 
ings,  destroy  those  compensations  which  the  world  and 
which  posterity  would  derive  from  a  continuance  of 
this  Union,  and  well  may  you  tremble  for  the  result. 
I  have  seen  fugitive  slaves  at  the  north,  and  heard  from 
their  own  lips  the  dreadful  recital  of  their  wrongs: 
and  if  I  am  any  judge  of  the  natural  language  of  men  ; 
if  I  can  divine  from  the  outward  expression  what  pas 
sions  are  burning  within,  each  one  of  them  had  a  hun 
dred  conflagrations  and  a  hundred  massacres  in  his 
bosom.  They  felt  as  you  and  I  should  feel  if  we  had 
been  subjected  to  Algerine  bondage.  And  do  you 
doubt,  sir,  does  any  southern  gentleman  on  this  floor 
doubt,  for  one  moment,  that  if  he  were  seized  by  a 
Barbary  corsair  and  sold  into  Algerine  bondage,  and 
carried  a  hundred  miles  into  the  interior,  that  he  would 
improve  the  first  opportunity  to  escape,  though  at  every 
step  in  his  flight  he  should  crush  out  a  human  life,  and 
should  leave  an  ever- widening  expanse  of  conflagration 
behind  him  ?  If  agitation  and  instigation  are  evils 
now,  woe  to  those  who  would  seek  to  mitigate  or  to 
repress  them  by  the  remedies  of  disunion  and  civil 
war.  Let  men  who  live  in  a  powder-mill  beware  how 
they  madden  pyrotechnists. 

But  it  is  said  that  if  dissolution  occurs,  the  "  United 
States  South  "  can  form  an  alliance  with  Great  Britain. 
And  are  there  no  instigators  and  abolitionists  in  Eng 
land  ?  Yes,  sir,  ten  in  England  where  there  is  one  at 
the  north.  Frederick  Douglass  has  just  returned  from 
England,  where  he  has  enjoyed  the  honors  of  an 
ovation.  William  Wells  Brown,  another  fugitive 
slave,  is  now  travelling  in  England.  His  journeys 


214 

from  place  to  place  are  like  the  "  progresses  "  of  one 
of  the  magnates  of  that  land,  —  passing  wherever  he 
will  with  free  tickets,  and  enjoying  the  hospitalities 
of  the  most  refined  and  educated  men.  The  very  last 
steamer  brought  out  an  account  of  his  public  reception 
at  Newcastle.  An  entertainment  was  given  him  which 
was  attended  by  four  hundred  ladies  and  gentlemen. 
Men  of  high  distinction  and  character  adorned  it  by 
their  presence.  The  ladies  made  up  a  purse  of  twenty 
sovereigns,  which  they  gave  him.  It  was  presented  in 
a  beautiful  purse  that  one  of  their  number,  —  the  suc 
cessful  competitor  for  the  honor,  —  had  wrought  with 
her  own  hands.  All  their  generosity  and  kindness 
they  considered  as  repaid  by  hearing  from  his  own  lips 
the  pathetic  story  of  his  captivity  and  the  heroism  of 
his  escape.  Sir,  every  man  who  has  travelled  in 
England  knows  that  there  are  large,  wealthy,  and  re 
fined  circles  there,  no  member  of  which  would  allow 
a  slaveholder  to  sit  at  his  table  or  enter  his  doors. 
Not  only  churches,  but  moral  and  religious  men,  the 
world  over,  have  begun  to  read  slaveholders  out  of 
their  communion  and  companionship.  If  the  south 
expects  to  rid  itself  of  agitation  and  abolitionism  by 
rupturing  its  bonds  with  the  north  and  substituting  an 
alliance  with  Great  Britain  for  our  present  constitution, 
they  may  envy  the  wisdom  of  the  geese  who  invited 
the  fox  to  stand  sentinel  over  them  while  they  slept. 
Northern  interference  will  increase  a  hundred  fold  ; 
and  the  whole  power  and  wealth  of  British  abolition 
ism,  not  only  founded  on  moral  principle  but  nursed 
by  national  pride,  will  be  brought  to  bear  directly  upon 
them. 

I  said  that  the  slave  does  not  know  much  of  geog 
raphy  ;  but  he  understands  enough  of  it  to  know 
where  lies  the  free  frontier.  The  slave  does  not  know 
much  of  astronomy  ;  but  there  is  one  star  in  the  firma 
ment  which  is  dearer  to  him  than  all  the  heavenly 


215 

host  were  to  the  Chaldeans.  He  worships  the  north 
star  with  more  than  Persian  idolatry.  But  let  the 
south  form  commercial  alliances  with  Great  Britain  ; 
let  the  carrying  trade  be  carried  on  in  British  vessels  ; 
and  the  slave  will  find  a  star  in  the  east  as  beautiful 
to  his  eye,  and  as  inspiring  to  his  hopes,  as  the  star  in 
the  north. 

Is  the  case  of  the  Amistad  forgotten,  where  a  few 
ignorant,  degraded  wretches,  fresh  from  the  jungles  of 
benighted  Africa  herself,  seized  upon  the  vessel  in 
which  they  were  transported,  and  compelled  the  mas 
ter,  under  peril  of  his  life,  to  steer  for  the  north  star, 
—  that  light  which  God  kindled  in  the  heavens,  and 
which  he  will  as  sotm  extinguish  as  he  will  extinguish 
the  love  of  liberty  which  he  has  kindled  in  every 
human  breast  ? 

And  will  a  slave,  escaping  to  Great  Britain,  or  to 
any  of  her  colonial  possessions,  be  reclaimable  ?  Ex 
amine  Somerset's  case  for  an  answer.  No,  sir.  Neither 
the  third  clause  of  the  second  section  of  the  fourth 
article  of  the  constitution,  nor  the  law  of  1793,  will 
ever  be  extended  over  the  Three  Kingdoms  or  their 
dependencies. 

It  surely  is  not  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  place  or 
the  occasion  to  look  at  another  of  those  "  hazards " 
which  the  south  are  invoking.  They  are  proud  of 
their  past  history,  and  I  doubt  not  their  reflecting  and 
patriotic  men  are  at  least  reasonably  solicitous  of  their 
future  fame.  When  they  meet  in  august  council  to 
inaugurate  the  great  event  of  establishing  an  inde 
pendent  confederacy  of  slave  states,  and  of  dissolving 
the  political  bands  which  now  unite  them  with  us, 
"  a  decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind  "  will 
u  require  them  to  declare  the  causes  which  had  impelled 
them  to  the  separation."  And  will  they  find  a  model 
for  their  manifesto  in  that  glorious  Declaration  of 
American  Independence  which  their  own  immortal 


216 

Jefferson  prepared,  and  to  which  many  of  the  greatest 
of  all  their  historic  names  are  subscribed  ?  Alas,  they 
will  have  to  read  that  Declaration,  as  the  devil  reads 
Scripture,  backwards!  I  know  not  what  may  be  the 
rhetorical  terms  and  phrases  of  the  new  Declaration, 
but  I  do  know  that  its  historic  form  and  substance 
cannot  be  widely  different  from  this :  — 

"  We  hold  these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  men 
are  not  created  equal ;  that  they  are  not  endowed  by 
their  Creator  with  inalienable  rights  ;  that  white  men, 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  were  born  to  rob,  and  tyr 
annize,  and  enjoy,  and  black  men,  of  the  African 
race,  to  labor,  and  suffer,  and  obey  ;  that  a  man,  with 
a  drop  of  African  blood  in  his  veins,  has  no  political 
rights,  and  therefore  shall  never  vote  ;  that  he  has  no 
pecuniary  rights,  and  therefore  whatever  he  may  earn 
or  receive,  belongs  to  his  master  ;  that  he  has  no  judi 
cial  rights,  and  therefore  he  shall  never  be  heard  as  a 
witness  to  redress  wrong,  or  violence,  or  robbery,  com 
mitted  by  white  men  upon  him ;  that  he  has  no  pa 
rental  rights,  and  therefore  his  children  may  be  torn 
from  his  bosom,  at  the  pleasure  or  caprice  of  his  owner; 
that  he  has  no  marital  rights,  and  therefore  his  wife 
may  be  lawfully  sold  away  into  distant  bondage,  or 
violated  before  his  eyes  ;  that  he  has  no  rights  of  mind 
or  of  conscience,  and  therefore  he  shall  never  be  al 
lowed  to  read  or  to  think,  and  all  his  aspirations  for 
improvement  shall  be  extinguished  ;  that  he  has  no  re 
ligious  rights,  and  therefore  he  shall  never  read  the 
Bible  ;  that  he  has  no  heaven-descended,  God-given 
rights  of  freedom,  and  therefore  he  and  his  posterity 
shall  be  slaves  forever.  We  hold  that  governments 
were  instituted  among  men  to  secure  and  fortify  this 
ascendency  of  one  race  over  another  ;  that  this  as 
cendency  has  its  foundation  in  force  ratified  by  law, 
and  in  ignorance  and  debasement  inflicted  by  intelli 
gence  and  superiority  ;  and  when  any  people,  with 


whom  we  are  politically  associated,  would  debar  us 
from  propagating  our  doctrines  or  extending  our  domi 
nation  into  new  realms  and  over  free  territories,  it  be 
comes  our  duty  to  separate  from  them,  and  to  hold 
them,  as  we  hold  the  rest  of  mankind,  — friends  when 
they  make  slaves,  enemies  when  they  make  freemen." 

I  say,  sir,  of  whatever  words  and  phrases  the  south 
ern  "  Magna  Charta  "  may  consist,  this,  or  something 
like  this,  must  be  its  substance  and  reality. 

So  the  preamble  to  their  constitution  must  run  in 
this  wise  :  "  We,  the  people  of  the  <  United  States 
South,'  in  order  to  form  a  more  perfect  conspiracy 
against  the  rights  of  the  African  race,  establish  injus 
tice,  insure  domestic  slavery,  provide  for  holding  three 
millions  of  our  fellow-beings,  with  all  the  countless 
millions  of  their  posterity,  in  bondage,  and  to  secure 
to  ourselves  and  our  posterity  the  enjoyment  of  power, 
and  luxury,  and  sloth,  do  ordain  and  establish  this  con 
stitution  for  the  <  United  States  South/  " 

Sir,  should  a  civil  war  ensue  between  the  north  and 
the  south,  (which  may  God  in  his  mercy  avert,)  in 
consequence  of  an  attempt  to  dissolve  this  Union,  and 
the  certain  resistance  which  would  be  made  to  such  an 
attempt,  it  would  be  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  imme 
diate  evils  which  would  befall  the  interests  of  New 
England  and  some  other  parts  of  the  north.  Our  man 
ufactures  and  our  commerce  would  suffer  at  least  a 
temporary  derangement.  But  we  have  boundless  re 
sources  in  our  enterprise  and  our  intelligence.  Knowl 
edge  and  industry  are  recuperative  energies  that  can 
never  long  be  balked  in  their  quest  of  prosperity.  The 
people  that  bore  the  embargo  of  1807,  and  the  war  of 
1812,  when  all  their  capital  was  embarked  in  com 
merce,  can  survive  any  change  that  does  not  stop  the 
revolution  of  the  seasons  or  suspend  the  great  laws  of 
nature.  And,  when  the  day  of  peace  again  returns, 
business  will  again  return  to  its  old  channels.  The 
19 


218 

south,  notwithstanding  any  personal  hostility,  will  be 
as  ready  to  take  northern  gold  as  though  it  had  come 
from  the  English  mint ;  and  they  will  employ  those 
first,  who  will  do  their  manufacturing  or  their  commer 
cial  labor  cheapest  and  best.  Gold  is  a  great  pacifica 
tor  between  nations  ;  and,  in  this  money-loving  age, 
mutual  interests  will,  in  the  end,  subdue  mutual  hostil 
ities.  Our  share,  therefore,  of  the  calamities  of  a  civil 
war,  will  be  mainly  of  a  pecuniary  nature.  They 
will  not  be  intolerable.  They  will  invade  none  of  the 
securities  of  home  ;  they  will  not  associate  poison  with 
our  daily  food,  nor  murder  and  conflagration  with  our 
nightly  repose;  nor  black  violation  with  the  sanctities 
of  our  daughters  and  our  wives. 

Even  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view,  a  dissolution  of 
our  political  ties  would  cause  less  immediate  and  in 
tense  suffering  at  the  north  than  at  the  south.  Our  laws 
and  institutions  are  all  framed  so  as  to  encourage  the 
poor  man,  and,  by  education,  to  elevate  his  children 
above  the  condition  of  their  parents ;  but  their  laws 
and  institutions  all  tend  to  aggrandize  the  rich,  and  to 
perpetuate  power  in  their  hands.  Were  it  not  for  the 
visions  of  horror  and  of  bloodshed  which  southern 
threats  have  so  intimately  associated  with  this  contro 
versy,  one  remarkable  feature,  which  has  hitherto  been 
eclipsed,  would  have  been  most  conspicuous. 

With  every  philanthropic  northern  man,  a  collateral 
motive  for  keeping  the  new  territories  free  is,  that 
they  may  be  a  land  of  hope  and  of  promise  to  the  poor 
man,  to  whichever  of  all  our  states  he  may  belong ; 
where  he  may  go  and  find  a  home  and  a  home 
stead  and  abundance.  But  the  south,  in  attempt 
ing  to  open  these  territories  to  the  slaveholders, 
would  give  them  to  the  rich  alone, —  would  give  them 
to  less  than  three  hundred  thousand  persons  out  of  a 
population  of  six  millions.  The  interests  of  the 
poorer  classes  at  the  south  all  demand  free  territory, 


219 

where  they  can  go  and  rise  at  once  to  an  equality  with 
their  fellow-citizens,  which  they  never  can  do  at  home. 
They  are  natural  abolitionists,  and  unless  blinded  by 
ignorance,  or  overawed  by  their  social  superiors,  they 
will  so  declare  themselves.  Every  intelligent  and 
virtue-loving  wife  or  mother,  at  the  south,  when  she 
thinks  of  her  husband  and  her  sons,  is  forced  to  be  an 
abolitionist.  The  attempt,  therefore,  to  subject  the 
new  territories  to  the  law  of  slavery  is  not  made  in 
the  name  of  one  half  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  ;  it  is  not  made  for  the  six  millions,  more  or 
less,  who  inhabit  the  slave  states  ;  but  it  is  made  for 
less  than  three  hundred  thousand  slaveholders  among 
more  than  twenty  millions  of  people. 

There  is  one  other  "  hazard,"  sir,  which  the  south 
invokes  and  defies,  which  to  her  high-minded  and 
honor-loving  sons,  should  be  more  formidable  than  all 
the  rest.  She  is  defying  the  Spirit  of  the  Age.  She  is 
not  only  defying  the  judgment  of  contemporaries,  but 
invoking  upon  herself  the  execrations  of  posterity. 
Mark  the  progress  in  the  public  sentiment  of  Christen 
dom,  within  the  last  few  centuries,  on  the  subject  of 
slavery  and  the  rights  of  man.  After  the  discovery  of 
this  continent  by  Columbus,  the  ecclesiastics  of  Spain 
held  councils  to  discuss  the  question,  whether  the 
aborigines  of  this  country  had  or  had  not  souls  to  be 
saved.  They  left  this  question  undecided  ;  but  they 
said,  as  it  was  possible  that  the  nations  of  the  new 
world  might  have  an  immortal  spirit,  they  would  send 
them  the  gospel,  so  as  to  be  on  the  safe  side  ;  and  the 
mission  of  Las  Casas  was  the  result.  In  the  time  of 
Lord  Coke,  only  a  little  more  than  two  centuries  ago, 
the  doctrine  was  openly  avowed  and  held,  in  West 
minster  Hall,  that  the  heathen  had  no  rights;  and 
therefore  that  it  was  lawful  for  Christians  to  drive 
them  out  of  their  inheritance,  arid  to  despoil  them,  as 
the  Jews  despoiled  the  Egyptians  and  drove  out  the 


220 

Canaan ites.  During  the  seventeenth  century,  all  the 
commercial  nations  of  Europe  engaged  in  the  African 
slave  trade,  without  compunction  or  reproach.  In  the 
last,  or  eighteenth  century,  the  horrors  of  that  trade  were 
aggravated  and  blackened  by  such  demoniacal  atroci 
ties,  as.  were  it  not  for  some  redeeming  attributes 
among  men,  would  have  made  the  human  race  im 
mortally  hateful.  Even  when  our  own  constitution 
was  formed,  in  1787,  this  dreadful  traffic  was  not  only 
sanctioned,  but  a  solemn  compact  was  entered  into,  by 
which  all  prohibition  of  it  was  prohibited  for  twenty 
years.  Yet,  in  the  year  1820,  after  the  lapse  of  only 
thirty-three  years,  this  very  trade  was  declared  to  be 
piracy,  —  the  highest  offence  known  to  the  law,  —  and 
the  felon's  death  was  denounced  against  all  principals 
and  abettors.  We  are  often  reminded  by  gentlemen 
of  the  south,  that,  at  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  that 
constitution,  slavery  existed  in  almost  every  state  in 
the  Union  ;  and  that  some  northern  merchants,  by  a 
devilish  alchemy,  transmuted  gold  from  its  tears  and 
blood.  But  can  they  read  no  lesson  as  to  the  progress 
of  the  age  from  the  fact  that  all  those  states  have  since 
abjured  slavery  of  their  own  free  will ;  and  that,  at  the 
present  day,  it  would  be  more  tolerable  for  any  north 
ern  merchant,  rather  than  to  be  reasonably  suspected 
of  the  guilt  of  this  traffic,  to  be  cast  into  the  fiery 
furnace  of  Nebuchadnezzar,  seven  times  heated  ?  In 
Europe,  the  tide  of  liberty,  though  meeting  with  ob 
structions  from  firm-seated  dynasties  and  time-strength 
ened  prerogative,  still  rises,  and  sweeps  onward  with 
unebbing  flow.  In  France,  revolutions  follow  each 
other  in  quicker  and  quicker  succession.  These  revo 
lutions  are  only  gigantic  struggles  of  the  popular  will 
to  escape  from  oppression  ;  and,  at  each  struggle,  the 
giant  snaps  a  chain. 

Great  Britain,  which  in  former  times  sent  more  ves 
sels  to  the  coast  of  Africa  to  kidnap  and  to  transport  its 


natives,  than  all  the  other  nations  of  the  earth  together, 
now  maintains  a  fleet  upon  the  same  coast  to  suppress 
the  trade  she  so  lately  encouraged.  Three  times,  dur 
ing  the  present  century,  has  that  government  escaped 
civil  commotion  by  making  large  concessions  to  popu 
lar  rights.  Since  the  year  1814,  written  constitutions 
have  been  extorted  by  the  people  from  more  than 
three  fourths  of  all  the  sovereigns  of  Europe.  What 
a  tempest  now  beats  upon  Austria,  from  all  points  of 
the  compass,  because,  during  the  last  season,  she  at 
tempted  only  to  half  enslave  the  Hungarians,  —  be 
cause  she  attempted  to  do  what,  during  the  last  cen 
tury,  she  might  have  done  without  a  remonstrance  ! 
The  rights  of  individuals,  not  less  than  the  rights  of 
communities,  have  emerged  from  oblivion  into  recog 
nition,  and  have  become  law.  Penal  codes  have  been 
ameliorated,  and  barbarous  customs  abolished.  There 
are  now  but  two  places  on  the  globe  where  a  woman 
can  be  publicly  whipped,  —  in  Hungary  and  in  the 
Southern  States  !  And  the  universal  scorn  and  hissing 
with  which  the  rulers  of  the  former  country  have  been 
visited  for  their  women-whipping,  and  their  execution 
of  those  whose  sole  crime  was  their  love  of  freedom, 
only  foretoken  that  fiercer  scorn  and  louder  hissing 
with  which,  from  all  sides  of  the  civilized  world,  the 
latter  will  soon  be  visited.  Let  the  high-toned  and 
chivalrous  sons  of  the  south, — those  "  who  feel  a  stain 
upon  their  honor  like  a  wound," — think  of  all  this,  as 
one  in  the  long  catalogue  of  " hazards"  upon  which 
they  are  rushing. 

Sir,  the  leading  minds  in  a  community  are  mainly 
responsible  for  the  fortunes  of  that  community.  Un 
der  God,  the  men  of  education,  of  talent,  and  of  at 
tainment,  turn  the  tides  of  human  affairs.  Where 
great  social  distinctions  exist,  the  intelligence  and  the 
wealth  of  a  few  stimulate  or  suppress  the  volition  of 
the  masses.  They  are  the  sensorium  of  the  body 
19* 


222 

politic,  and  their  social  inferiors  are  the  mighty  limbs, 
which,  for  good  or  for  evil,  they  wield.  Such  is  the 
relation  in  which  the  three  hundred  thousand,  or  less 
than  three  hundred  thousand  slave  owners  of  the  south, 
hold  to  their  fellow-citizens.  They  can  light  the  torch 
of  civil  war,  or  they  can  quench  it.  But  if  civil  war 
once  blazes  forth,  it  is  not  given  to  mortal  wisdom  to 
extinguish  or  control  it.  It  comes  under  other  and 
mightier  laws,  under  other  and  mightier  agencies. 
Human  passions  feed  the  combustion  :  and  the  flame 
which  the  breath  of  man  has  kindled,  the  passions  of 
the  multitude,  —  stronger  than  the  breath  of  the  hur 
ricane, —  will  spread.  Among  these  passions,  one  of 
the  strongest  and  boldest  is  the  love  of  liberty,  which 
dwells  in  every  bosom.  In  the  educated  and  civilized, 
this  love  of  liberty  is  a  regulated  but  paramount  de 
sire  ;  in  the  ignorant  and  debased,  it  is  a  wild,  vehe 
ment  instinct.  It  is  an  indestructible  part  of  the  na 
ture  of  man.  Weakened  it  may  be,  but  it  cannot  be 
destroyed.  It  is  a  thread  of  asbestos  in  the  web  of  the 
soul,  which  all  the  fires  of  oppression  cannot  consume. 
With  the  creation  of  every  human  being,  God  creates 
this  love  of  liberty  anew.  The  slave  shares  it  with  his 
master,  and  it  has  descended  into  his  bosom  from  the 
same  high  source.  Whether  dormant  or  wakeful,  it 
only  awaits  an  opportunity  to  become  the  mastering 
impulse  of  the  soul.  Civil  war  is  that  opportunity. 
Under  oppression  it  bides  its  time.  Civil  war  is  the 
fulness  of  time.  It  is  literal  truth  that  the  south  fos 
ters  within  its  homes  three  millions  of  latent  rebellions. 
Imbedded  in  a  material  spontaneously  combustible,  it 
laughs  at  fire.  Has  it  any  barriers  to  keep  the  spirit  of 
liberty,  which  has  electrified  the  Old  World,  from  cross 
ing  its  own  borders,  and  quickening  its  bondmen  into 
mutinous  life?  —  not  all  of  them,  but  one  in  ten  thou 
sand,  one  in  a  hundred  thousand  of  them.  If  there  is 
no  Spartacus  among  them,  with  his  lofty  heroism  and 


223 

his  masterly  skill  for  attack  and  defence,  is  the  race  of 
Nat  Turners  extinct,  who,  in  their  religions  musings, 
and  their  dnmh  melancholy,  take  the  impulses  of  their 
own  passions  for  the  inspiration  of  God,  and,  after 
prayer  and  the  eucharist,  proceed  to  massacre  and  con 
flagration  ?  In  ignorant  and  imbruted  minds,  a  thou 
sand  motives  work  which  we  cannot  divine.  A 
thousand  excitements  madden  them,  which  we  cannot 
control.  It  may  be  a  text  of  Scripture,  it  may  be  the 
contents  of  a  wine  vault ;  but  the  result  will  be  the 
same,  —  havoc  wherever  there  is  wealth,  murder 
wherever  there  is  life,  violation  wherever  there  is 
chastity.  Let  this  wildfire  of  a  servile  insurrection 
break  out  in  but  one  place  in  a  state ;  nay,  in  but  ten 
places,  or  in  five  places  in  all  the  fifteen  states;  and 
then,  in  all  their  length  and  breadth,  there  will  be  no 
more  quiet  sleep.  Not  Macbeth,  but  the  angel  of  retri 
bution,  will  "  murder  sleep."  The  mother  will  clasp 
her  infant  to  her  breast,  and,  while  she  clasps  it,  die  a 
double  death.  But,  where  will  the  slaves  find  arms  ? 
11  Furor  anna  mi/tistrat."  Rage  will  supply  their 
weapons.  Read  the  history  of  those  slaves  who  have 
escaped  from  bondage  ;  mark  their  endurance  and  their 
contrivance,  and  let  incredulity  cease  forever.  They 
have  hid  themselves  under  coverts;  dug  holes  and  bur 
rowed  in  the  earth  for  concealment ;  sunk  themselves 
in  ponds,  and  sustained  life  by  breathing  through  a 
reed,  until  their  pursuers  had  passed  by;  wandered 
in  "Dismal  Swamps,"  far  away  from  the  habitations  of 
men  ;  almost  fasting  for  forty  days  and  forty  nights, 
like  Christ  in  the  wilderness  :  crushed  themselves  into 
boxes,  but  of  half  a  coffin's  dimensions,  to  be  nailed 
np  and  transported  hundreds  of  miles,  as  merchan 
dise  ;  and,  in  this  horrible  condition,  have  endured 
hunger  and  thirst,  and,  standing  upon  the  head,  with 
out  a  groan  or  a  sigh; — and,  will  men,  who  devise 
such  things,  and  endure  such  things,  be  balked  in  their 
purposes  of  hope  and  of  revenge,  when  the  angel  of 


224 

destruction,  in  the  form  of  the  angel  of  liberty,  de 
scends  into  their  breasts  ? 

The  state  of  slavery  is  always  a  state  of  war.  In 
its  deepest  tranquillity,  it  is  but  a  truce.  Active  hostil 
ities  are  liable  at  any  hour  to  be  resumed.  Civil  war 
between  the  north  and  the  south,  —  any  thing  that 
brings  the  quickening  idea  of  freedom  home  to  the 
mind  of  the  slave  ;  that  supplies  him  with  facilities  of 
escape,  or  immunities  for  revenge,  —  will  unleash  the 
bloodhounds  of  insurrection.  Can  you  muster  armies 
in  secret,  and  march  them  in  secret,  so  that  the  slave 
shall  not  know  that  they  are  mustered  and  marched  to 
perpetuate  his  bondage,  and  to  extend  the  bondage  of 
his  race  ?  Was  not  Major  Dade's  whole  command 
supposed  to  be  massacred  through  the  treachery  of  a 
slave  ?  A  foray  within  your  borders  places  you  in 
such  a  relation  to  the  slave  that  you  are  helpless  with 
out  him,  and  in  danger  of  assassination  with  him.  He 
that  defends  slavery  by  war,  wars  against  the  eternal 
laws  of  God,  and  rushes  upon  the  thick  bosses  of 
Jehovah's  buckler.  Such  are  some  of  the  "  hazards  " 
which  the  leaders  of  public  opinion  at  the  south,  the 
legislators  and  guides  of  men  in  this  dark  and  perilous 
hour,  are  invoking  upon  themselves  and  their  fellows  ; 
not  for  the  interests  of  the  whole,  but  for  the  fancied 
interests  of  the  slaveholders  alone,  and  against  the  real 
interest  of  a  vast  majority  of  the  people.  May  God 
give  that  wisdom  to  the  followers  which  he  seems  not 
yet  to  have  imparted  to  the  leaders. 

Sir,  in  these  remarks,  I  have  studiously  abstained 
from  every  thing  that  seemed  to  me  like  retaliation  or 
unkindness.  I  certainly  have  suffered  no  purposed 
word  of  crimination  to  pass  my  lips.  If  I  have  ut 
tered  severe  truths,  I  have  not  sought  for  severe  lan 
guage  in  which  to  clothe  them.  What  I  have  said,  I 
have  said  as  to  a  brother  sleeping  on  the  brink  of  a 
precipice,  where  one  motion  of  his  troubled  sleeping, 


225 

or  of  his  bewildered  awaking,  might  plunge  him  into 
remediless  ruin. 

In  conclusion,  I  have  only  to  add,  that  such  is  my 
solemn  raid  abiding  conviction  of  the  character  of 
slavery,  that  under  a  full  sense  of  my  responsibility  to 
my  country  and  my  God,  I  deliberately  say,  better 
disunion,  —  better  a  civil  or  a  servile  war,  —  better  any 
tiling  that  God  in  his  providence  shall  send,  than  an 
extension  of  the  bounds  of  slavery. 

Upon  the  close  of  Mr.  Mann's  remarks, 

Mu.  BURT,  of  South  Carolina,  rose  and  said  that  he 
had  not  interrupted  the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts 
during  his  speech,  but  he  presumed  he  did  not  wish  to 
have  any  error  go  forth  under  the  sanction  of  his 
name  ;  and  he  therefore  called  upon  him  to  retract 
what  he  had  said  in  regard  to  slaves  ever  being  ex 
empted  from  capital  punishment  for  crimes  for  which 
the  whites  were  executed.  He  called  upon  him  also 
to  withdraw  the  imputation  that  the  pecuniary  value 
of  the  slave  was  a  motive  for  any  such  difference  in 
the  laws  respecting  them.  He  remarked  that,  by  the 
laws  of  the  Southern  States,  such  a  distinction  is  not 
made.  I  know,  said  he.  no  instance  in  which  it 
exists.  On  the  contrary,  slaves  are  punished  capitally 
for  offences  that  are  not  so  punished  when  committed 
by  white  men.  In  South  Carolina,  slaves  have  never 
been  admitted  to  the  benefit  of  clergy  for  offences  at 
common  law  ;  and  thus  a  slave  is  punished  capitally 
for  maiming  or  grievously  beating  a  white  man.  Mr. 
Burt  was  also  understood  to  say  that  there  were  "  six 
or  eight,"  or  "  eight  or  ten,"  offences  in  South  Caro 
lina  for  which  slaves  were  punished  capitally,  but  for 
which  white  men  were  not. 

MR.  MAXX  replied  that  he  had  stated  what  he  be 
lieved  to  be  true  ;  but  if  he  had  fallen  into  any  mis 
take,  he  should  be  most  happy  to  be  corrected.  He 
was  assured  also  by  the  gentleman  from  Georgia,  on 


226 

his  left,  [Mr.  TOOMBS,]  that  no  such  distinction  existed 
as  he  had  supposed  ;  and  it  was  but  reasonable  to 
believe  that  those  gentlemen  were  more  conversant 
with  the  southern  laws  than  himself. 

MR.  MANN  added  that  he,  (Mr.  Mann,)  could  riot  be 
expected  to  have  the  statute  books  of  the  Southern 
States  before  him.  at  that  time,  to  meet  so  unexpected 
a  denial.  Neither  could  he  be  expected  by  any  honor 
able  gentleman  to  make  a  retraction  until  he  had  time 
to  see  whether  the  ground  he  had  taken  were  tenable. 


NOTE  BY  MR.  MANN.  On  repairing  to  the  Law  library  to  ascertain 
which  party  was  right  in  regard  to  the  above  difference  of  opinion,  the 
second  book  I  opened  contained  at  least  three  cases,  where  the  courts 
•were  authorized  to  sentence  a  slave  to  be  transported  for  the  commis 
sion  of  an  offence,  for  which  a  white  man  must  be  unconditionally 
hung.  See  North  Carolina  Rev.  Stat.  vol.  i.  chap.  3,  §§  36,  37,  39. 
Of  course,  the  reason  of  this  difference  is  the  pecuniary  value  of  the 
slave.  Hung,  he  would  be  worthless  ;  transported  to  Cuba,  he  might 
bring  five  hundred  dollars. 

The  law  was  formerly  so  in  Mr.  Burt's  own  state. 

In  the  seventh  volume  of  the  Statutes  at  Large  of  South  Carolina, 
No.  344,  §5,1  find  the  following  :  "  And  whereas,  it  has  been  found 
by  experience  that  the  execution  of  several  negroes  for  felonies  of  a 
smaller  nature,  by  which  they  have  been  condemned  to  die,  has  been 
of  great  charge  and  expense  to  the  public,  and  will  continue,  (if  some 
remedy  be  not  found,)  to  be  very  chargeable  and  burdensome  to  this 
province  ;  Be  it  therefore  enacted,  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  all 
negroes  or  other  slaves  who  shall  be  convicted  and  found  guilty  of 
any  capital  crime,  (murder  excepted,)  for  which  they  used  to  receive 
the  sentence  of  death,  as  the  law  directs,  shall  be  transported  from 
this  province,  by  the  public  receiver  for  the  time  being,  to  any  other 
of  his  majesty's  plantations,  or  other  foreign  part,  where  he  shall 
think  fitting  to  send  them,  for  the  use  of  the  public" 

The  slave  condemned  to  transportation  was  to  be  appraised,  and 
his  master  paid  out  of  the  public  treasury,  and  this  amount  was,  of 
course,  to  be  reimbursed  by  what  should  be  received  from  the  foreign 
sale.  From  the  statement  of  Mr.  Burt,  that  no  such  law  now  exists 
in  South  Carolina,  I  suppose  the  above  enactment  must  have  been 
repealed. 

The  fact  stated  in  the  speech  is  therefore  proved,  although  the 
instances  may  be  fewer  than  I  had  supposed.  As  to  the  motive 
attributed,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  cases  are  most  numerous  in 
the  Southern  States,  where  white  men  are  merely  imprisoned  for 
offences  for  which  slaves  are  whipped,  branded,  and  cropped,  or 
otherwise  corporally  punished.  The  slave's  time  is  too  valuable  to 


227 

be  lost  in  a  prison,  but  the  white  man's  is  not ;  the  white  man's  akin 
is  too  sacred  to  be  flayed  or  branded,  but  the  slave's  is  not. 

But  laws  which  punish  "six  or  eight,"  or  "eight  or  ten,"  or  any 
other  number  of  offences  with  death,  when  committed  by  slaves, 
while  the  same  offences  receive  a  milder  penalty  when  committed  by 
whites  ;  or  laws  denying  the  benefit  of  clergy,  (where  that  relic  of 
barbarism  still  prevails,)  to  a  slave,  while  it  is  granted  to  a  white 
man,  are  surely  among  the  greatest  atrocities  recorded  in  the  history 
of  the  race.  Ponder  for  a  moment  upon  the  accursed  fact.  A  free 
man  acting  under  all  the  motives  to  self-respect ;  moved  by  all  the 
incentives  to  good  conduct ;  enjoying  all  the  means  of  education  ; 
inspired  by  all  the  influences  of  the  gospel ;  and  capable  of  compre 
hending  all  the  powerful  restraints  and  the  sublime  rewards  connected 
with  a  hereafter,  exonerated  from  the  punishment  of  death  ;  while 
death,  in  all  the  horrors  with  which  ignorance  and  superstition  can 
invest  it,  is  inflicted  upon  men  who  are  subjected  to  bondage  ;  de 
prived  of  all  motive  for  honorable  conduct ;  debarred  from  every 
avenue  to  knowledge  by  cruel  penalties  ;  blinded  to  the  light  of  the 
gospel ;  and,  in  a  land  of  boasted  Clmstianity,  left  in  the  darkness 
of  heathenism  !  These  are  not  the  customs  of  a  lawless  banditti,  of 
outcasts  or  renegades,  but  solemn  enactments  of  state  legislatures, 
devised  by  talent  and  eminence,  enforced  and  preserved  by  the  oli 
garchical  few,  by  the  virtual  nobility  and  flower  of  populous  commu 
nities.  Such  laws  demand  a  return  of  five  talents,  under  penalty  of 
death,  where  only  one  talent  had  been  confided  ;  they  absolve  him 
who  had  received  five  talents,  though  he  brings  none  of  them  back. 
Such  laws  make  the  Scriptures  read,  that  the  servant  who  knoweth 
his  lord's  will,  but  doeth  it  not,  shall  be  beaten  with  but  few  stripes  ; 
but  the  servant  who  did  not  know  it,  whom  his  very  master  debarred 
from  knowing  it,  shall  be  beaten  with  many  stripes  ;  for  unto  whom 
soever  much  is  given,  but  little  shall  be  required  ;  but  to  whom  men 
have  committed  much,  of  him  little  shall  be  asked.  What  shall  be 
thought  of  a  system,  AXD  OF  EXTENDING  A  SYSTEM,  which  so  perverts 
the  hearts  of  men,  otherwise  clear-headed,  high-minded,  and  gener 
ous  ! 

What  more  fitting  theme  could  be  conceived,  were  the  arch-enemy 
of  mankind  to  compose  a  burlesque,  in  ridicule  of  Republics,  to  be 
represented  in  that  Theatre  which  is  all  "  Pit "  ? 

It  is  not,  however,  the  existence  of  slavery,  but  its  extension,  we 
now  intend  to  avert. 


The  last  paragraph  in  the  foregoing  speech  gave  rise  to 
the  following  correspondence,  which  was  published  in  the 
National  Intelligencer :  — 


228 


LETTER  FROM  MR.   MANN. 

MESSRS.  EDITORS  ;  Your  paper  of  this  morning  contains  a  portion  of 
a  speech  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  BADGER,  of  North  Carolina,  delivered 
in  the  Senate  on  the  19th  instant,  in  which  he  comments  upon  some 
remarks  lately  made  by  me  in  the  House  of  Representatives.  The 
respect  which,  (without  any  personal  acquaintance,)  I  have  long  enter 
tained  for  this  distinguished  senator,  would  deter  me  from  noticing 
any  such  miscontructions  of  my  remarks  as  a  candid  mind  might  inad 
vertently  commit ;  but  the  misrepresentations  which  the  senator  has 
made  are  so  gratuitous  and  gross,  that  I  am  constrained  to  notice  them. 
I  therefore  ask  the  favor  of  a  place  in  your  paper,  where  he  can  answer 
me,  if  he  pleases,  though  he  chose  a  place  for  his  animadversions  where 
he  knew  I  could  not  answer  him. 

The  following  is  a  passage  in  his  speech  :  — 

"  Nor,  Mr.  President,  must  I  forget  that,  in  considering  the  effect  which 
this  proviso  is  likely  to  have  upon  the  condition  of  the  "southern  mind,  we 
must  look  to  what  has  been  said  by  northern  gentlemen  iu  connection  with 
this  subject.  Permit  me  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Senate  to  a  very  brief  ex 
tract  from  a  speech  delivered  in  the  other  end  of  the  capitol :  — 

"'In  conclusion,  I  have  only  to  add,  that  such  is  my  solemn  and  abiding 
conviction  of  the  character  of  slavery,  that,  under  a  full  sense  of  my  respon 
sibility  to  my  country  and  my  God,  I  deliberately  say,  better  disunion,  better 
a  civil  or  a  servile  war,  better  any  thing  that  God  in  his  providence  shall  send, 
than  an  extension  of  the  bounds  of  slavery.' 

"  Several  SENATORS.     Whose  speech  is  that  ? 

"ASKNATcm.     Mr.  Mann's. 

"  Mr.  BADGER.  We  have  heard  much,  Mr.  President,  of  the  violence  of 
southern  declamation.  I  have  most  carefully  avoided  reading  the  speeches  of 
southern  gentlemen  who  were  supposed  to  be  liable  to  ihat  charge.  I  hap 
pened,  however,  in  the  early  part  of  this  session,  and  before  the  other  House 
was  organized,  to  be  in  that  body  when  there  were  some  bursts  of  feeling  and 
denunciation  from  southern  gentlemen,  which  I  heard  with  pain,  mortifica 
tion,  almost  with  anguish  of  mind.  But,  sir,  these  were  bursts  of  feeling ;  these 
were  passionate  and  excited  declarations  5  these  had  every  thing  to  plead  for 
them  as  being  spontaneous  and  fiery  ebullitions  of  men  burning  at  the  moment 
under  a  sense  of  wrong.  And  where,  among  these,  will  you  find  any  thing 
equal  to  the  cool,  calm,  deliberate  announcement  of  the  philosophic  mind 
that  delivered  in  the  other  House  the  passage  which  I  have  read  :  '  Better  dis 
union,  better  a  civil  or  a  servile  war,  better  any  thing  that  God  in  hia  provi 
dence  shall  send,  than  an  extension  of  the  bounds  of  slavery.' 

"  In  other  words,  it  is  the  deliberate,  settled,  fixed  opinion  oP  the  honorable 
gentleman  who  made  that  speech,  that  rather  than  the  extension  of  slavery 
one  foot, — yes  sir,  there  is  no  qualification,  one  foot,  —  he  would  prefer  a 
disunion  of  these  states  ;  he  would  prefer  all  the  horrors  of  civil  war,  all  the 


229 

monstrous,  untold,  and  almost  inconceivable  atrocities  of  a  servile  war ;  ho 
would  pile  the  earth  with  dead;  he  would  light  up  heaven  with  midnight  con 
flagrations  ;  all  this,  yea,  and  more,  —  all  the  vials  of  wrath  which  Ciod  in  his 
providence  might  see  fit  to  pour  down  upon  us,  he  would  suffer,  rather  than 
permit,  not  one  man  who  is  now  free  to  be  made  a  slave,  —  that  would  be 
extravagant  enough,  —  but  rather  than  permit  one  man  who  now  .stands  upon 
the  soil  of  North  Carolina  a  slave,  to  stand  a  slave  upon  the  soil  of  I\ew 
Mexico : 

"  Yes,  sir,  here  is  a  sacrifice  of  life  and  happiness,  and  of  all  that  is  dear  to 
the  black  and  white  races  together,  to  a  mere  idealism,  —  a  sacrifice  proposed 
by  a  gentleman  who  claims  to  be  a  philosopher,  and  to  speak  the  language  of 
calm  deliberation,  —  a  sacrifice  of  our  glorious  Union  proposed  by  a  patriot, 
—  not  rather  than  freemen  should  bo  made  slaves,  —  not  rather  than  the  con 
dition  of  even  one  hum.in  being  should  be  made  worse  than  it  now  is. —  but 
rather  than  one  man  shall  remove  from  one  spot  of  the  earth  to  another  without 
an  improvement  of  his  condition,  without  passing  from  slavery  to  freedom. 
Sir.  alter  that  announcement,  thus  made,  which  1  beg  to  say,  sir,  1  did  not 
seek,  —  for  the  speech  I  have  never  read  ;  the  extract  I  found  in  one  of  the 
newspapers  of  the  day,  —  alter  that  announcement,  talk  not  of  southern  vio 
lence,  talk  not  of  southern  egotism,  talk  not  of  our  disposition  to  sacrifice  to 
our  pec.uliur  notions  and  our  peculiar  relations,  the  peace  and  happiness,  the 
growing  prosperity,  and  the  mutual  concord  of  this  great  l.'nion.  ISow,  sir,  if 
that  announcement  goes  abroad  into  the  southern  country,  attended  by  the 
wanton  application  of  this  U'ilmot  proviso,  an  irritating  commentary  upon  that 
patriotic  announcement,  what  can  be  expected  ?  What  but  the  deepest  emo 
tions  of  indignation  in  the  bosoms  of  those  born  and  brought  up  where 
slavery  exists,  and  taking  totally  different  views  of  the  institution  from  those 
winch" are  taken  by  the  honorable  gentleman  who  has  placed  himself  upon 
this  cool  and  deliberate,  humane  and  philosophical  position." 

By  his  own  confession,  Mr.  Badger  had  not  read  my  speech.  He 
takes  up  a  single  sentence,  therefore,  for  comment,  without  the  justice 
of  looking  at  the  context.  He  is  like  the  man  who  should  declare 
that  the  Scriptures  say  "  there  is  no  God,"  when  it  is  the  fool,  and  not 
the  Bible,  that  makes  the  declaration.  My  speech  discussed  the  ques 
tion  of  extending  slavery  over  our  territories  and  the  proposed  south 
ern  remedy  for  prohibiting  that  extension,  namely,  the  disunion  of  the 
states.  The  conclusion  to  which  I  came  was,  that  the  north  had  bet 
ter  submit  to  the  application  of  the  southern  remedy,  than  to  surren 
der  the  new  territories  to  all  the  horrors  of  bondage.  Beyond  our 
present  limits  "no  more  slave  territories  and  no  more  slave  states," 
was  the  exact  ground  I  took.  But  Mr.  Badger  represents  me  as  saying 
that  I  would  "prefer  a  disunion  of  these  states,"  and  all  the  other 
evils  in  his  long  and  labored  catalogue,  "  rather  than  the  extension  of 
slavery  one  foot ;  "  yes,"  he  repeats  with  emphasis,  "one  foot."  Now, 
I  never  made  such  a  declaration  as  this.  I  never  said  any  thing  to  give 
countenance  or  color  to  such  a  declaration.  Many  persons,  seeing  the 
statement  of  the  honorable  senator,  and  relying  upon  his  character 
for  fairness  and  veracity,  have  believed  that  I  did  But  he  has  led 
them  into  the  error.  My  argument  and  conclusion  had  reference  to 
new  slave  territories,  or  to  a  new  slave  territory.  Mr.  Badger  con 
strues,  or  rather  misconstrues  this  to  mean  "one foot."  If  my  speech 
is  fairly  susceptible  of  this  construction,  I  wish  so  far  to  retract  it.  He 
shall  have  my  consent  to  a  "  one  foot "  territory,  and  to  as  many  slaves 
as  he  can  hold  on  it  under  the  local  laic. 

20 


230 

Mr.  Badger  further  charges  me  with  invoking  all  the  calamities  he 
enumerates,  «'  rather  than  permit  one  man  who  now  stands  upon  the 
soil  of  North  Carolina  a  slave,  to  stand  a  slave  upon  the  soil  of  New 
Mexico."  This  statement  is  not  merely  forced,  but  fabricated.  Surely 
I  said  no  such  thing.  I  intimated  nor  hinted  at,  nor  thought  of  such 
a  thing.  There  may  be  little  choice  whether  any  one  man  who  now 
"  stands  a  slave,"  shall  "  stand  a  slave"  in  one  place  or  in  another,  if 
that  be  all.  In  a  national  point  of  view,  and  looking  at  the  subject 
as  a  statesman,  the  sentiment  imputed  to  me  is  simply  ridiculous. 
But  this  wrongful  imputation  of  such  a  sentiment,  without  substance 
or  semblance  to  justify  it,  is  far  worse  than  ridiculous  ;  it  becomes 
unjust  and  ungenerous  ;  and  is  none  the  less  so  for  being  made  in  a 
place  where  he  knew  I  could  not  repel  it.  The  whole  scope  and  stress 
of  my  argument  went  against  yielding  any  such  portion  of  our  new 
acquisitions  to  slavery  as  would  form  either  a  state  or  a  territory. 
The  eight  or  ten  southern  legislatures,  the  eight  or  ten  governors  of 
southern  states,  the  southern  Senators  and  Representatives  in  Con 
gress,  and  the  confederates  in  getting  up  the  Nashville  Convention, 
have  never,  to  my  knowledge,  proposed  a  compromise  on  the  platform 
of  a  "  one  foot"  territory,  or  expressed  their  readiness  to  spare  the 
"Union  if  "  one  man  who  stands  a  slave  in  North  Carolina,"  is  permit 
ted  to  "stand  a  slave  in  New  Mexico."  When  such  an  issue  is 
brought  forward  seriously,  it  will  be  met  seriously.  But  the  real 
issue  on  this  point  is,  (and  the  senator  must  know  it,)  whether  the 
victims  of  slavery  shall  be  indefinitely  multiplied  by  the  addition  to 
its  domain  of  regions  now  free.  That  the  creation  of  a  new  slave  ter 
ritory  will  increase  the  victims  of  slavery,  is  a  proposition  too  plain 
to  be  argued.  To  deny  this,  is  to  assert  that  if  slavery  had  been 
confined  to  the  State  of  Virginia,  or  to  the  settlement  at  Jamestown, 
where  the  first  cargo  of  slaves  was  landed,  the  present  number  of 
slaves  in  this  country  would  be  no  less  than  it  now  is ;  or,  in  other 
words,  there  would  now  be  three  millions  of  slaves  within  the  limits 
of  Virginia,  or  within  the  limits  of  Jamestown. 

I  have  made  this  reply  to  the  honorable  senator  from  North  Caro 
lina  with  great  reluctance,  and  from  no  motive  of  personal  unkind- 
ness.  I  have  long  been  accustomed  to  regard  his  character  with 
respect,  and  his  opinions  with  deference  ;  and  I  am  happy  in  an  op 
portunity  to  express  a  feeling  of  personal  gratitude  for  his  former 
endeavors  to  avert  from  the  councils  of  the  nation  the  subject-matter 
of  this  most  lamentable  contention. 

Very  truly,  yours,  &c.,  HORACE  MANN. 

WASHINGTON,  March  28,  1850. 

P.  S.  Another  point  in  the  honorable  senator's  speech,  in  wrhich 
he  attempts  to  vindicate  the  penal  slave  code  of  North  Carolina  and 
of  the  other  Southern  States  from  the  taint  of  cupidity,  may  be  safely 
left  without  comment  to  intelligent  men.  Every  student  of  the  crim 
inal  legislation  of  the  Southern  States  in  regard  to  slaves,  knows  that 
their  laws  are  replete  with  proofs  where  the  sensibilities  of  a  man  are 
sacrificed  to  the  spirit  of  gain. 


231 


MR.   BADGER'S   REPLY. 

To  THE  Enrrons  OF  THE  NATIONAL  INTELLIGENCER  ; 

A  communication  in  your  paper  of  yesterday,  from  the  Hon. 
HOR.U :i:  M.VNV,  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  seems  to  require  a 
brief  notice  from  me. 

The  honorable  gentleman  accuses  me  of  having  treated  him  \vith 
gross  injustice  in  a  recent  speech,  in  which  I  referred  to  the  closing 
paragraph  of  a  speech  of  his,  and  made  some  comments  thereupon. 

Now,  in  what  consists  the  injustice  ?  I  quoted  that  paragraph 
from  his  speech,  and  he  does  not  deny  th'at  it  was  quoted  truly. 
There  is  not  a  word  or  syllable  attributed  to  him,  not  a  word  or  syl 
lable  alleged  or  insinuated  to  have  been  spoken  by  him,  except  that 
paragraph,  and  that  he  admits  was  spoken  and  printed  by  him  just 
as  1  quoted  it.  Then,  in  the  statement  of  his  language,  I  have  done 
him  no  injustice. 

In  my  comments,  I  gave  "  in  other  words,"  —  in  my  own  words,  — 
what  I  deemed  a  true  interpretation  of  his  ;  and,  as  I  attributed  to 
him  no  language  which  he  did  not  use ;  as  every  thing  to  which  ho 
objects  is,  and  upon  the  face  of  my  remarks  plainly  purports  to  be, 
merely  my  own  commentary  upon  the  single  quotation  correctly  taken 
from  the  gentleman's  speech,  it  is  very  obvious  that  I  have  "  fabri 
cated"  nothing.  Whether  the  interpretation  given  to  the  honorable 
gentleman's  language  be  correct  or  incorrect,  a  just  carrying  of  it  out 
to  its  true  results,  or  an  unfair  exaggeration,  intelligent  men  will  be 
able  to  decide  from  the  reading  of  my  speech,  which  presents  to 
gether  both  the  text  and  the  commentary,  and  to  them  I  am  willing 
to  leave  it. 

lint  the  gentleman  says  that  in  his  speech  he  "  discussed  the  ques 
tion  of  extending  slavery  over  our  territories,''  and  that  "  no  moi'C 
slave  territories  and  no  more  slave  states  was  the  exact  ground"  he 
took.  And  what  has  that  to  do  with  the  matter  of  his  complaint 
against  me  ?  I  referred  not  to  his  discussion,  or  the  grounds  taken 
in  it.  I  was  not  considering  the  course  or  validity  of  his  reasoning, 
but  the  conclusion  at  which  he  arrived.  That  was  set  down  in  his 
speech  in  these  words  :  — 

"In  conclusion,  I  have  only  to  add,  that  such  is  my  solemn  and  abiding 
conviction  of  the  character  of  slavery,  that,  under  a  full  sense  of  my  respon 
sibility  to  my  country  and  my  God,  I  deliberately  say,  better  disunion,  —  better 
a  civil  or  a  servile  war,  —  bettor  any  thing  that  God  in  his  providence  shall 
send,  than  an  extension  of  the  bound*  of  slavery." 

Here  is  no  reference  to  any  particular  degree,  kind,  or  manner  of 
extending  slavery.  He  speaks  not  of  the  "  proposed  or  desired  ex 
tension,"  of  "extension  into  our  territories,"  or  even  of  "the  cxten- 


232 

sion,"  but  he  speaks  of  "  an  extension  of  the  bounds  of  slavery,'' 
•without  a  reference  to  any  thing  in  the  speech  or  elsewhere  by  which 
the  generality  of  his  language  might  be  modified  or  explained.  To 
refer,  therefore,  to  the  speech  in  order  to  understand  the  import  of 
this  general  conclusion,  is  idle.  If  the  reasoning  in  the  speech  be 
particular,  and  the  deduction  general,  there  would  be  the  logical  de 
fect  of  a  conclusion  too  large  for  the  premises,  but  the  meanings  of 
the  conclusion  would  remain,  and  the  want  of  reasoning  to  support 
it  would  not  abate  aught  of  its  unmitigated  and  sweeping  generality. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that,  whether  supported  by  any  reasoning,  par 
ticular  or  general,  the  gentleman's  conclusion  remains,  that  disunion, 
civil  war,  servile  war,  with  certain  undefined  judgments  of  Heaven 
besides,  are  preferable  to  "  an  extension  of  the  bounds  of  slavery  ;  " 
but  the  indefinite  article  "  an"  is  here  exactly  equivalent  to  "  any," 
and  therefore  whatever  amounts  to  "  any  extension,"  however  small, 
—  a  square  mile,  or  acre,  or  foot,  —  is  strictly  within  the  meaning  of 
the  language  which  he  has  thought  proper  deliberately  to  retain  in 
his  printed  speech. 

But  I  accept  willingly  the  explanation  now  given  of  his  meaning, 
and  only  regret  that,  when  writing  out  his  speech,  he  did  not  then 
give  the  explanation  which  converts  his  general  into  a  particular 
proposition.  By  this  explanation  I  learn  that,  in  his  conclusion,  he 
meant  to  speak  not  of  any  extension,  however  small,  but  of  an  ex 
tension  of  slavery  in  our  territories. 

Then  the  gentleman's  conclusion,  as  modified  by  himself,  will  be 
thus  :  "  Better  disunion,"  [the  dissolution  of  our  government  and 
destruction  of  the  Union  formed  by  our  fathers  ;]  "  better  a  civil  or 
a  servile  war,"  [the  most  disastrous,  ferocious,  and  cruel  of  all  wars ;] 
"  better  any  thing  that  God  in  his  providence  shall  send,"  [for  exam 
ple,  pestilence  and  famine ;]  "  than  an  extension  of  the  bounds  of 
slavery"  over  our  territories! 

I  cheerfully  submit  to  all  "  intelligent  men,"  if  they  are  at  the  same 
time  humane  and  patriotic,  to  pass  upon  such  a  sentiment.  To  his 
own  intelligent,  patriotic,  and  humane  constituents,  I  submit  it,  with 
entire  confidence  that  it  will  not  meet  their  approval ;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  that  they  will  regard  the  honorable  gentleman  as  having 
been  betrayed  by  the  pervading  excitement  on  the  slavery  question, 
into  an  extravagant,  —  I  will  not  say  fanatical,  —  declaration,  which 
he  is  not  able  to  defend,  or  willing,  as  yet,  to  retract  or  qualify. 

I  had  believed  that  the  honorable  gentleman  had,  under  the  ex 
citing  influence  of  discussion,  unconsciously  done  injustice  to  my 
own  state,  but  a  remark  added  to  his  communication  would  perhaps 
justify  me,  if  inclined  to  judge  unkindly,  in  svipposing  that  the 
wrong  was  wilful.  But  I  am  not  so  inclined,  and  draw  no  such  con 
clusion.  I  infer,  rather,  that  the  bewildering  excitement  under  which 
the  speech  was  made  has  not  yet  passed  away,  but  still  continues  to 
influence  unfavorably  the  otherwise  clear  understanding  and  fair  and 
upright  purposes  of  the  honorable  gentleman. 

GEO.  E.  BADGER. 

WASHINGTON,  March  30,  1850. 


233 


MR.   MANN'S   REJOINDER. 

MKSSKS.  EDITORS  ;  Your  paper  of  this  morning  contains  a  com 
munication  from  the  Hon.  Mr.  BADGKR,  in  reply  to  mine  of  the 
29th  ultimo.  I  ask  your  indulgence  while  I  briefly  answer  him. 

My  complaint  was,  that  he  had  taken  half  a  dozen  lines  from  my 
speech,  and  had  attributed  a  meaning  to  them,  in  some  respects  odious, 
in  other  respects  ridiculous,  and  in  all  respects  unwarrantable.  By 
his  own  admission,  too,  he  had  done  this  without  reading  the  speech 
itself;  when,  had  he  accorded  to  me  the  justice  of  hearing  me  before 
he  condemned  me,  he  would  have  found  that  both  subject-matter  and 
context  confuted  his  interpretation. 

His  first  reply  is,  that  he  did  not  "  attribute"  to  me  "  a  word  "  nor 
"a  syllable"  which  I  did  not  use;  and,  repeating  himself,  he  adds, 
that  he  did  not  "  allege  "  or  "  insinuate  "  a  "  word"  nor  "  a  syllable  " 
that  I  now  deny.  In  view  of  this  he  asks,  with  an  air  of  triumph, 
"  In  what  consists  the  injustice  r  " 

I  answer,  as  before  ;  the  injustice  consists  in  giving  a  false  meaning 
to  true  "  words  "  and  "  syllables,"  —  a  meaning  which  both  the  sub 
ject-matter  and  context  of  my  speech  repudiate.  I  do  not  see  that  it  is 
less  unjustifiable  to  attach  false  meanings  to  words  correctly  quoted, 
than  to  forge  quotations.  Surely,  the  honorable  senator  is  too  good  a 
lawyer  to  be  ignorant  of  the  maxim,  "  qui  lucrct  in  litera"  &c.  ;  and 
too  good  a  theologian  not  to  have  read  that  "the  letter  killeth  "  if  di 
vorced  from  the  spirit.  When  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  were  closeted 
together  to  devise  the  plan  of  one  of  their  joint  plays,  in  which  a 
king  was  to  be  killed,  they  were  severally  overheard  to  say,  "I  will 
kill  the  king,"  and  "I  will  kill  the  king;  "  whereupon  they  were  ar 
rested,  transported  to  London,  and  arraigned  for  conspiring  the  death 
of  the  reigning  sovereign.  Suppose  them  to  have  been  convicted  of 
>ii  and  gibbeted  ;  could  riot  the  perjured  informer,  with  a  charm 
ing  and  childlike  simplicity,  have  used  the  exact  language  of  Mr. 
BADOER,  and  said,  I  testified  to  the  exact  "  words  "  and  "  syllables."' 
"  In  what  consists  the  injustice  ?  " 

But  the  honorable  senator  goes  on  to  say,  that  he  had  no  concern 
with  my  speech,  but  only  with  my  conclusion.  His  language  is,  '<  I 
A\  as  not  considering  the  course  or  validity  of  his  reasoning,  but  the 
conclusion  at  which  he  arrived."  He  then  repeats  the  quotation,  and 
adds,  "To  refer,  therefore,  to  the  speech  in  order  to  understand  the 
import  of  this  conclusion,  is  idle." 

With  all  deference  to  the  senator,  —  and  mine  is  unfeignedly  great,, 
—  I  submit  that  this  is  false  logic  and  worse  ethics.  As  well  may 
one  declare  the  judgment  of  a  court  to  be  legal  or  illegal,  merciful  or 
tyrannous,  without  looking  back  to  the  allegations  and  proofs  on 
which  it  is  founded.  As  well  may  one  affirm  or  deny  the  "  Q.  E.  D." 

20* 


234 

of  the  geometer,  without  reference  to  the  problem  or  demonstration 
to  which  it  is  subjoined.  When  a  discussion  exists  respecting  "an  exten 
sion  of  the  bounds  of  slavery"  (and  these  were  my  words,)  and  I  say 
that  I  would  prefer  certain  enumerated  evils  rather  than  the  extension 
in  controversy,  it  surely  becomes  all-important  to  know  whether  that 
extension  is  to  embrace  the  whole  earth  and  to  extend  through  all 
time,  or  whether  it  is  only  the  addition  of  one  atom  or  granule  to  ex 
isting  slave  territory,  or  of  one  respiration,  or  one  heart-beat  of  an 
existing  slave,  on  territory  now  free.  I  affirm,  then,  that  a  kno wledge 
of  the  premises  is  indispensable  to  a  judgment  on  the  conclusion. 

But  he  accepts  my  explanation,  and  then  appeals  from  me  to  what 
he  is  pleased  to  call,  (and  I  thank  him  for  the  justice  that  prompted 
the  well-deserved  compliment.)  my  "  intelligent,  patriotic,  and  humane 
constituents,"  —  "  with  entire  confidence  that  it  will  not  meet  their 
approval."  I  gladly  join  in  this  appeal.  As  "intelligent'"  men,  my 
constituents  foresee  that  the  extension  of  slavery  over  our  territories 
will  not  only  be  an  unspeakable  crime  in  itself,  but  will  be  converted 
into  the  means  of  future  unspeakable  crimes  in  further  extensions. 
As  "patriotic"  men,  they  prefer  to  bear  any  calamity  that  may 
come  upon  themselves,  rather  than  to  devolve  accumulated  calamities, 
growing  out  of  their  own  dereliction  from  duty,  upon  their  posterity. 
As  "  humane  "  men,  they  would  deprecate  and  forefend  that  great 
est  of  inhumanities,  the  dooming  of  increased  thousands  and  millions 
of  their  fellow-men  to  the  dreadful  inheritance  of  bondage.  And  as 
religious  men,  —  as  men  who  "  tremble  when  they  reflect  that  God  is 
just,  and  that  his  justice  will  not  sleep  forever,"  —  they  mean  to  use 
all  constitutional  means  to  arrest  the  slave -creating  and  slave-extend 
ing  policy  of  this  government,  let  the  two  or  three  hundred  thousand 
slaveholders  among  our  twenty  millions  of  people  do  what  they 
will. 

That  the  bearings  of  the  subject  may  be  rightly  understood,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  my  speech  was  made  on  the  loth  of  Feb 
ruary,  after  ten  weeks  of  threatened  disunion  on  certain  specified  and 
not  improbable  contingencies.  "  My  conclusion,"  therefore,  was  not 
aggressive,  but  submissive.  I  only  declared  which  branch  of  their 
proffered  alternative  I  should  prefer. 

The  closing  paragraph  of  the  respected  senator's  communication  al 
ludes  to  the  motives  of  those  wide  and  painful  differences  which  are 
made  between  the  whites  and  the  slaves  in  the  criminal  legislation  of 
the  Southern  States.  Nothing  could  be  more  edifying,  as  to  the  de 
moralizing  nature  of  slavery  and  its  effects  upon  men,  who,  like  the 
senator,  are  otherwise  honorable  and  generous,  than  a  comparison  of 
the  two  codes  of  law  and  the  two  systems  of  jurisprudence  which  the 
rulers  have  respectively  established  for  themselves  and  for  their  bond 
men.  The  laws  or  customs  known  to  civilized  men  and  to  barbarians 
are  not  more  diverse.  It  would  be  rash  and  reckless  in  me  to  en 
counter  the  distinguished  senator  on  any  other  subject ;  but  on  this  I 
would  say,  as  was  said  by  a  knight  in  an  old  tournament,  that  he  had 
such  confidence  in  the  justness  of  his  cause  that  he  would  give  his 
adversary  the  advantage  of  sun  and  wind. 

HORACE  MANN. 

WASHINGTON,  April  1,  1850. 


235 


LETTERS 

ON  THE  EXTENSION  OF  SLAVERY  INTO  CALIFORNIA  AND  NEW 
Ml.MCO;  AND  ON  THE  DUTY  OF  CONGRESS  TO  PROVIDE  THE 
TRIAL  BY  JURY  FOR  ALLEGED  FUGITIVE  SLAVES. 


HON.  HOIIACK  MANN  ; 

Dear  Sir, — Having  learned  that  you  are  spending  a  few  days  at  home, 
and  approving  the  course  yon  have  pursued  in  Congress,  in  maintaining 
so  ably  the  sentiments  and  convictions  which  we  maintain  and  cherish 
on  the  great  national  questions  of  the  day,  we  respectfully  request 
you,  before  returning  to  Washington,  to  give  your  constituents  an  op 
portunity  of  hearing  somewhat  more  at  length  than  the  hour  rule 
would  allow,  your  views  and  opinions  upon  the  question  of  the  im 
mediate  admission  of  California,  and  other  questions  now  before  Con 
gress,  arising  out  of  the  acquisition  of  territory  by  the  treaty  with 
Mexico. 

Should  you  comply  with  our  request,  please  name  some  day  which 
will  be  convenient  for  you,  that  we  may  give  seasonable  notice  through 
your  district. 

Dedham. 
JAMES  RICHARDSON,  I.  CLEVELAND,  JOHN  GARDNER. 


DAVID  A.  SIMMONS, 
G.  R.  RUSSELL, 
JOSEPH  H.  BILLINGS, 
I..  M.  SARGENT, 


CHARLES  WILD, 
MARSHALL  STEARNS, 


E.  SHARPS, 
Brighton,  J.  BRECK. 
Foxbcro't  A.  HODGES. 
]\'alpole,  A.  BIGELOW, 

E.  C.  DYER, 
April  23d,  1850. 


Roxbury. 

JOHN  J.  CLARKE, 
Jos.  N.  BREWER, 
WM.  A.  CRAFTS, 
WM.  CAPEN, 

Brookline. 
WM.  DEARBORN, 
G.  GRIGGS, 

Dorchester, 
N.  F.  SAFFORD, 


FRANCIS  HILLIARD, 
DANIEL  JACKSON, 
J.  B.  KETTELL. 


DAVID  WILDER,  Jr., 
G.  F.  HOMER. 


J.  G.  NAZRO. 


Randolph,  J.  WALF.S.       Stoughton,  J.  SMITH. 
Quincy,  L.  RICHARDS.     Milton,  J.  REED. 
Franklin,  L.  HARDING.     Cohasset,  GEO.  BEAL. 

Newton. 
R.  E.  PATTERSON,  W.  S.  WHITWELL. 

H  ing  ham. 
C.  W.  CUSHING. 


236 


LETTER  I. 


WEST  NEWTON,  May  3,  1850. 

To  the  Hon.  James  Richardson,  I.  Cleveland,  and  John  Gardner,  of 
Dedham  ;  Hon.  D.  A.  Simmons,  John  J.  Clarke,  Francis  Hilliard, 
and  George  R.  Russell,  of  Roxbury,  &c.,  &c. 

GENTLEMEN  ; 

Having  been  called  home  on  account  of  sickness 
in  my  family,  I  have  just  received,  at  this  place,  your 
kind  invitation  to  meet  and  address  my  constituents 
of  the  8th  Congressional  District,  and  to  give  them 
my  "  views  and  opinions  upon  the  question  of  the 
immediate  admission  of  California,  and  other  questions 
now  before  Congress,  arising  out  of  the  acquisition  of 
territory  by  the  treaty  with  Mexico" 

A  request  from  so  high  a  source  has  almost  the  force 
of  a  command.  Yet  I  dare  not  promise  to  comply.  I 
am  liable  at  any  moment  to  be  recalled,  and,  instead 
of  speaking  here,  to  vote  there,  upon  the  questions  to 
which  you  refer.  I  might  be  summoned  to  return  on 
the  day  appointed  for  us  to  meet.  The  only  alterna 
tive,  therefore,  which  is  left  me,  is  to  address  you  by 
letter.  This  I  will  do,  if  I  can  find  time.  I  shall  thus 
comply  with  your  request,  in  substance,  if  not  in  form. 

On  many  accounts,  I  have  the  extremest  reluctance 
to  appear  before  the  public  on  the  present  occasion. 
My  views,  on  some  vital  questions,  differ  most  materially 
from  those  of  gentlemen  for  whom  I  have  felt  the 
profoundest  respect  ;  and  for  some  of  whom  I  cherish 
the  strongest  personal  attachment.  But  I  feel,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  my  constituents,  having  intrusted  to 
me  some  of  their  most  precious  interests,  are  entitled 


237 

to  know  my  "  views  and  opinions  "  respecting  the 
hopes  and  the  dangers  that  encompass  them.  I  shall 
not,  therefore,  take  the  responsibility  of  declining. 

I  will  premise  further,  that  my  relations  to  political 
parties,  for  many  years  past,  have  left  me  as  free  from 
all  partisan  bias  "  as  the  lot  of  humanity  will  admit." 
For  twelve  years  I  held  an  office  whose  duties  required 
me  to  abstain  from  all  active  cooperation  in  political 
conflicts;  and  that  duty  was  so  religiously  fulfilled, 
that,  to  my  knowledge,  I  was  never  charged  with  its 
violation.  During  the  Presidential  contest  of  1848, 
those  obligations  of  neutrality  still  rested  upon  me. 
For  a  year  afterwards,  I  was  not  called  upon  to  do  any 
official  act  displeasing  to  any  party  amongst  us.  This 
interval  I  employed  in  forming  the  best  opinion  I  could 
of  public  men  and  measures,  and  their  influence  upon 
the  moral  and  industrial  interests  of  the  country.  I 
had  long  entertained  most  decided  convictions  in  favor 
of  protecting  American  labor,  in  favor  of  cheap  postage, 
and  of  security  to  the  lives  and  property  of  our  fellow- 
citizens  engaged  in  commerce.  But  a  new  question 
had  arisen,  —  the  great  question  of  freedom  or  slavery 
in  our  recently  acquired  territories,  —  and  this  question 
I  deemed,  for  the  time  being,  to  be,  though  not  exclu 
sive  of  others,  yet  paramount  to  them.  Or  rather,  I 
saw  that  nothing  could  be  so  favorable  to  all  the  last- 
named  interests,  as  the  proper  adjustment  of  the  first. 
He  who  would  provide  for  the  welfare  of  mankind, 
must  first  provide  for  their  liberty. 

Sympathizing,  then,  on  different  points  with  differ 
ent  parties,  but  exclusively  bound  to  none,  I  stood,  in 
reference  to  the  great  question  of  territorial  freedom  or 
slavery,  in  the  position  of  the  true  mother  in  the  liti 
gation  before  Solomon,  preferring  that  the  object  of 
my  love  should  be  spared  in  the  hands  of  any  one, 
rather  than  perish  in  my  own. 

Our  present  difficulties,  which,  as  you  well  know, 


238 

have  arrested  the  gaze  of  the  nation,  and  almost  sus 
pended  the  legislative  functions  of  Congress,  pertain  to 
the  destiny  of  freedom  or  of  slavery,  to  which  our  new 
territories  are  to  be  devoted.  After  the  acquisition  of 
Louisiana,  and  Florida,  and  Texas,  for  the  aggrandize 
ment  and  security  of  the  Slave-power ;  after  the  abo 
riginal  occupants  of  the  soil  of  the  Southern  States  have 
been  slaughtered,  or  driven  from  their  homes,  at  an  ex 
pense  of  not  less  than  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars, 
and  at  the  infinite  expense  of  our  national  reputation 
for  justice  and  humanity ;  and  after  the  area  of  the 
slave  states  has  been  made  almost  double  that  of  the 
free  states,  while  the  population  of  the  free  is  about 
double  that  of  the  slave  ;  the  reasons  seem  so  strong 
that  they  can  hardly  be  made  stronger,  why  the  career 
of  our  government,  as  a  slavery-extending  power,  should 
be  arrested.  On  the  other  hand,  the  oligarchy  who 
rule  the  south,  seeing  that,  notwithstanding  their  rich 
and  almost  illimitable  domain,  they  are  rapidly  falling 
behind  the  north  in  all  the  distinctive  elements  of  civ 
ilization  and  well  being,  —  industry,  temperance,  edu 
cation,  wealth, — not  only  defend  the  Upas  that  blasts 
their  soil,  as  though  it  were  the  tree  of  life,  but  seek  to 
transplant  it  to  other  lands.  With  but  about  three 
slaves  to  a  square  mile, — three  millions  of  slaves  to 
nearly  a  million  of  square  miles,  —  they  say  they  are 
too  crowded ;  that  they  feel  a  sense  of  suffocation,  and 
must  have  more  room,  when  all  their  weakness  and 
pain  proceed,  not  from  the  limited  quantity,  but  from 
the  malignant  quality  of  the  atmosphere  they  breathe. 
Hence  the  war  with  Mexico,  commenced  and  prose 
cuted  to  add  slave  territory  and  slave  states  to  the 
southern  section.  Hence  the  refusal  to  accept  propo 
sitions  of  peace,  unless  territory  south  of  latitude 
36'  30°,  (the  Missouri  compromise  line,  so  called,) 
should  be  ceded  to  us.  Hence,  when  the  Mexican  ne 
gotiators  proposed  to  insert  a  prohibition  of  slavery  in. 


239 

the  treaty  of  cession,  and  declared  that  the  inquisition 
would  not  be  more  odious  to  the  American  people  than 
the  reinstitution  of  slavery  to  them,  our  minister,  Mr. 
Trist,  told  them  he  would  not  consent  to  such  a  pro 
hibition  though  they  would  cover  the  soil  a  foot  deep 
with  gold.  And  hence,  also,  the  determination  of  a 
portion  of  the  southern  members  of  Congress  to  stop 
the  whole  machinery  of  the  government,  to  sacrifice  all 
the  great  interests  of  the  country,  and  assail  even  the 
Union  itself,  unless  slavery  shall  be  permitted  to  cross 
the  Rio  Grande  and  enter  the  vast  regions  of  the  west, 
as  it  heretofore,  in  its  aggressive  march,  crossed  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Sabine. 

Even  in  1846,  when  the  war  against  Mexico  was 
declared,  all  men  of  sagacity  foresaw  the  present  con 
flict.  Could  that  question  have  been  decided  on  its 
merits,  or  could  the  institutions  to  be  planted  upon  the 
territory  we  might  acquire  have  been  determined  by 
the  unbiased  suffrages  of  the  American  people,  no  war 
would  have  been  declared,  and  no  territory  acquired. 
But  the  great  political  leaders  of  the  south  expected  to 
make  up  both  for  their  numerical  weakness  and  for  the 
injustice  of  their  cause,  by  connecting  the  question  of 
slavery  extension  with  that  of  future  presidential  elec 
tions  and  with  the  strife  of  parties.  They  promised 
themselves  that  they  could  draw  over  leading  northern 
men  to  their  support,  by  offering  them  the  Tantalus  cup 
of  presidential  honors;  and  then,  by  the  force  of  party 
cohesion  and  discipline,  insure  the  support  of  the  vast 
descending  scale  of  office  expectants.  Early  in  the 
present  session  of  Congress,  it  was  distinctly  declared 
from  a  high  southern  source,  that  the  south  must  do 
most  for  those  northern  men  who  would  do  most  for 
them.  A  few  words  will  make  it  apparent  how  faith 
fully  this  plan  has  been  adhered  to,  and  how  successful 
it  may  become.  • 

No  northern  Democrat,  opposed  to  slavery  extension, 


240 

could  expect  the  support  of  the  southern  democracy. 
Hence,  General  Cass  stepped  promptly  forward,  and  de 
clared,  in  his  Nicholson  letter,  that  Congress  had  no 
power  to  exclude  slavery  from  the  territories.  This 
has  been  technically  called  his  "bid,"  or  his  "first 
bid."  It  was  deemed  satisfactory  by  the  south  ;  for, 
according  to  their  philosophy,  the  relation  of  master 
and  slave  is  the  natural  or  normal  relation  of  mankind  ; 
and  therefore,  where  no  prohibition  of  it  exists,  slavery 
flows  into  free  territory  as  water  runs  down  hill.  This 
avowal  of  General  Cass  was  rendered  more  signal  and 
valuable  to  the  south,  because,  for  the  greater  part  of  his 
political  life,  he  had  taken  oaths,  held  offices,  and  ad 
ministered  laws,  in  undeniable  contradiction  to  the 
declaration  then  made.  The  ordinance  of  1787  was 
expressly  recognized  by  the  first  Congress  held  under  the 
constitution,  [see  ch.  8.]  It  was  modified  in  part,  and 
confirmed  as  to  the  rest ;  and  in  holding  offices  under 
this,  General  Cass  had  laid  the  foundation  of  his  honors 
and  his  fortune.  His  declaration,  therefore,  against  all 
interdiction  of  slavery,  made  under  circumstances  so 
extraordinary  and  in  contradiction  to  the  whole  tenor 
of  his  past  life,  was  hailed  with  acclamation  by  the 
south,  and  he  was  unanimously  declared,  at  Baltimore, 
to  be  the  accepted  candidate  of  the  democracy,  for  the 
office  of  President.  The  common  notion  is.  that  a  man 
shows  his  love  for  a  cause  by  the  amount  of  sacrifice 
he  will  make  for  it ;  and  as  consistency,  honor,  and 
truth,  are  the  most  precious  elements  in  character, 
he  showed  his  devotion  to  the  south  by  sacrificing 
them  all. 

To  the  honor  of  the  Whig  party  be  it  said,  there 
was  riot  a  northern  man  to  be  found,  who,  to  gain  the 
support  of  the  south,  would  espouse  its  pro-slavery 
doctrines,  or  invent  any  new  reading  of  the  constitution 
to  give  them  a  semblance  of  law.  Hence,  at  the  Phil 
adelphia  Convention,  no  northern  Whig  received  even 


241 

so  much  as  a  complimentary  vote.  The  judicial  emi 
nence  of  .1 1 iite  McLean,  the  military  eminence  of  Gen 
eral  Scott,  were  passed  contemptuously  by  ;  and  Mr. 
Webster,  acknowledged  to  be  the  greatest  statesman  of 
the  uire,  received  but  fourteen  votes  out  of  almost  three 
hundred  ;  and  twelve  of  these  were  from  Massachu 
setts.  Mr.  Webster  had  spoken  more  eloquent  words 
for  liberty  than  any  other  living  man,  and  this  distin 
guished  neglect  was  doubtless  intended  to  teach  him 
the  lesson,  that  the  path  to  presidential  honors  did  not 
lie  through  an  advocacy  of  the  rights  of  man.  General 
Taylor  was  nominated  and  chosen.  He  was  under 
stood  to  take  neutral  ground.  Discountenancing  the 
veto  power,  if  the  House  of  Representatives,  who 
are  chosen  directly  from  and  by  the  people,  and  the 
Senate,  who  are  chosen  by  the  states,  will  pass  a  ter 
ritorial  bill,  either  with  or  without  a  prohibition  of 
slavery,  he  will  approve  it.  This  is  the  common  opin 
ion,  and  I  have  no  doubt  of  its  correctness. 

Under  these  circumstances,  a  most  desperate  effort 
was  made  at  the  close  of  the  last  Congress  to  provide 
a  government  for  the  territories  with  no  prohibition  of 
slavery.  Had  General  Cass  been  elected,  no  such  effort 
would  have  been  necessary,  for  he  was  pledged  to  veto 
a  prohibition.  General  Taylor  was  supposed  to  be 
pledged  to  an  opposite  coarse  ;  and  hence  the  struggle. 
The  facts  must  be  so  fresh  in  the  recollection  of  all, 
that  they  hardly  need  to  be  recounted.  The  House 
performed  its  duty  to  the  country  and  to  freedom,  by 
sending  territorial  bills  to  the  Senate  containing  the 
prohibitory  clause.  The  Senate,  equalling  the  north 
ern  by  its  southern  votes,  and  far  outnumbering  the 
Whigs  by  its  Democrats,  left  those  bills  to  sleep  the 
sleep  of  death  upon  its  table.  But  during  the  closing 
hours  of  the  session,  it  foisted  a  provision  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  territories  into  the  general  appropria 
tion  bill ;  and  held  out  the  menace  that  this  bill  should 
21 


242 

not  pass  at  all,  unless  the  territorial  clause  should  pass 
with  it.  The  flagitiousness  of  this  proceeding  it  is 
difficult  to  comprehend  and  impossible  to  describe. 
The  appropriation  bill  is  one  on  which  the  working, 
aud  even  the  continuance  of  the  government,  depend. 
Without  it,  the  machinery  of  the  state  must  cease  to 
move.  Contracts  by  the  government  to  pay  money 
must  be  violated.  Officers  cannot  obtain  their  salaries. 
Families  must  be  left  without  subsistence.  If  long 
continued,  all  judges  would  resign,  and  courts  be  broken 
up ;  and  when  justice  should  cease  to  be  administered, 
violence,  robbery,  and  every  form  of  crime  would  run 
riot  through  the  land. 

Besides,  an  appropriation  bill  and  a  bill  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  territories  have  no  congruity  with  each 
other.  They  are  not  relevant.  Neither  is  germane  to 
the  other.  Every  one  knows  it  to  be  a  common  par 
liamentary  rule  that  when  a  proposition  is  submitted 
which  is  susceptible  of  a  division,  any  one  member  has 
a  right  to  demand  it.  All  bills,  too,  for  raising  rev 
enue,  must,  by  the  constitution,  originate  in  the  House ; 
and  the  House  has  as  much  right  to  interfere  to  prevent 
the  Senate  from  ratifying  a  treaty,  as  the  Senate  has  to 
obstruct  the  passage  of  a  revenue  bill  by  adding  to  it 
extraneous  provisions.  It  was  this  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  Senate  to  incorporate  into  the  appropriation  bill 
a  provision  most  unrighteous  in  itself  and  most  odious 
to  the  free  sentiments  of  the  north,  which  led  to  the 
protracted  session  on  the  night  of  the  3d  of  March, 
1849.  The  course  of  the  pro-slavery  leaders,  on  that 
occasion,  resembled  that  of  a  madman  who  should 
seize  a  torch  and  stand  over  the  magazine  of  a  ship, 
and  proclaim  that  he  would  send  men  and  vessel  to 
destruction,  unless  they  would  steer  for  his  port.  A 
portion  of  the  House  confederated  with  the  majority  of 
the  Senate  in  this  unprincipled  machination  ;  but  the 
larger  number  stood  undaunted,  and  after  perils,  such 


243 

as  so  precious  an  interest  never  before  encountered, 
the  pro-slavery'  amendment  was  stricken  out,  and  its 
champions  wore  foiled.  Through  that  memorable 
night  the  friends  of  freedom  wrestled  like  Jacob  with 
the  angel  of  God.  and  though  the  session  did  not  close 
until  the  sun  of  a  Sabbath  morning  shone  full  into  the 
windows  of  the  capitol,  yet  a  holier  work  never  Avas 
done  on  that  holy  day. 

It  was  with  a  joy  such  as  no  words  can  ever  ex 
press,  that  I  saw  the  territories  rescued  from  the  clutch 
of  slavery  by  the  expiration  of  the  Thirtieth  Congress. 
1  frit  confident  that  when  the  Thirty-first  Congress 
should  assemble,  it  would  ho  under  better  auspices,  and 
with  a  stronger  phalanx  on  the  side  of  freedom.  In 
regard  to  California,  those  hopes  have  been  fulfilled  ; 
but  I  proceed  to  state  how  they  have  been  nearly 
extinguished  in  regard  to  the  residue  of  the  territory. 

Our  first  disaster  was  the  election  of  a  most  adroit, 
talented,  and  zealous  pro-slavery  speaker.  A.  better 
organ  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  purposes  the 
friends  of  slavery  could  not  have  found  ;  nor  the 
friends  of  freedom  a  more  formidable  opponent.  Whilst 
the  pro-slavery  champions  of  the  south,  almost  without 
distinction  of  party,  exulted  over  this  triumph,  it  has 
been  the  occasion  of  most  lamentable  criminations  and 
recriminations  at  the  north.  Southern  men  abandon 
all  distinctions  of  Whig  or  Democrat  for  the  cause  of 
slavery.  Would  to  God  we  could  do  as  much  for  the 
cause  of  freedom. 

The  choice  of  a  pro-slavery  speaker  was  immediate 
ly  followed  by  the  appointment  of  most  ultra  pro- 
slavery  committees.  Some  Free-Soil  members,  it  is 
true,  were  placed  upon  these  committees ;  but  in  this, 
the  speaker  only  carried  out  more  fully  his  own  pur 
poses  and  those  of  his  party,  by  putting,  what  they 
considered  as  insane  men,  into  close  custody,  instead  of 
letting  them  run  at  large.  He  showed,  however,  either 


244 

a  want  of  courage  in  himself,  or  of  confidence  in  his 
chosen  guards  ;  for,  on  the  District  of  Columbia  com 
mittee  he  detailed  a  file  of  five,  on  the  judiciary  com 
mittee  a  file  of  four,  and  on  the  territorial  committee  a 
file  of  six  strong  pro-slavery  men,  for  the  safe  keeping 
of  one  Free-Soiler. 

Within  an  hour  after  the  House  was  organized,  Mr. 
Root,  of  Ohio,  submitted  a  resolution,  instructing  the 
committee  on  territories  to  report  territorial  bills  pro 
hibiting  slavery.  Many  true  friends  to  freedom  be 
lieved  this  movement  to  be  ill  timed  and  unfortunate  ; 
and  though  the  House  then  refused,  by  a  handsome 
vote,  to  lay  the  resolution  on  the  table,  yet  when  it 
came  up  for  consideration  again,  the  first  decision  was 
reversed  by  about  the  same  majority.  There  is  abun 
dant  proof  that  the  latter  vote  did  not  express  the  true 
sentiment  of  the  House.  Not  a  few  voted  against  the 
resolution  avowedly  because  of  its  paternity,  —  thus 
spiting  a  noble  son  on  account  of  its  obnoxious  father. 
Others  repented  of  their  votes  as  soon  as  they  came  to 
reflect  that  the  record  would  go  where  their  explana 
tion  could  not  accompany  it. 

But  unfortunately  it  was  too  late.  There  stands 
the  record,  to  survive  through  all  time  and  to  be  read 
of  all  men.  The  champions  of  slavery  seized  upon 
this  vote  as  a  propitious  omen.  They  derided  and 
scouted  the  proviso  with  a  fierceness  unknown  before. 
They  shouted  their  threats  of  disunion  with  a  more 
defiant  tone,  should  any  attempt  at  what  they  called 
its  resurrection,  be  made.  A  speech  was  delivered  by 
Mr.  Clingman,  of  North  Carolina,  in  which  a  massacre 
of  a  majority  of  the  House  was  distinctly  shadowed 
forth,  so  that  not  "  a  quorum  should  be  left  to  do  busi 
ness."  The  effect  of  that  vote  was  almost  as  bad  as 
though  it  meant  what  it  said. 

At  a  later  day,  when  a  bill  for  the  admission  of  Cali 
fornia  was  presented,  the  tactics  of  delay  were  resorted 


245 

to,  and  midnight  found  us  calling  the  yeas  and  nays, 
for  more  than  the  thirtieth  time,  on  questions  whose 
frivolousncss  and  vexatiousncss  cannot  be  indicated  by 
numbers. 

The  proceedings  in  the  Senate,  however,  are  those 
Vi-hich  now  threaten  the  most  disastrous  consequences. 
Early  in  the  session,  in  order  to  bring  his  northern 
friends  up  to  the  doctrine  that  it  is  unconstitutional  to 
legislate  against  slavery  in  the  territories,  General  Cass 
made  a  speech,  in  which  he  denies  that  Congress  has 
any  power,  under  any  circumstances,  to  pass  any  law 
respecting  their  inhabitants.  According  to  that  speech, 
the  United  States  stands  in  the  relation  of  a  foreign 
government  to  the  people  of  its  own  territories;  and 
if  they  set  up  a  king  or  establish  a  religion,  we  cannot 
help  it ;  for  we  have  no  more  power  or  right  to  control 
them  than  we  have  the  subjects  of  Great  Britain  or 
the  citizens  of  France.  It  has  been  said  that  the  doc 
trine  of  General  Cass  and  that  of  General  Taylor,  on 
this  subject,  are  identical  ;  but  there  is  this  all-im 
portant  difference  between  them:  —  General  Taylor 
maintains  the  right  of  Congress  to  legislate  for  the  ter 
ritories,  and  will  doubtless  approve  any  bill  for  the 
prohibition  of  slavery  in  them ;  but  General  Cass,  de 
nying  this  right  in  Congress,  would,  if  President,  veto 
such  a  bill.  He,  therefore,  would  leave  the  territories 
open  to  be  invaded  and  possessed  by  slavery  ;  and  in 
southern  law  and  practice  possession  is  more  than 
nine  points. 

Next  came  Mr.  Clay's  compromise  resolutions,  so 
called.  By  these,  California  was  to  be  admitted  as  a 
state ;  the  territories  organized  without  any  restriction 
upon  slavery  ;  the  south-western  boundary  of  Texas  to 
be  extended  to  the  Rio  Grande  :  a  part  of  her  ten  or 
twelve  million  debt  to  be  paid  by  the  United  States, 
on  condition  of  her  abandoning  her  claim  to  a  part  of 
New  Mexico  lying  east  of  the  Rio  Grande  ;  the  aboli- 
21* 


246 

tion  of  the  slave  trade  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and 
the  inviolability  of  slavery  in  the  District  daring  the 
good  pleasure  of  Maryland  and  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  District;  more  effectual  provision  for  the  restitution 
of  fugitive  slaves,  and  free  traffic  in  slaves  forever  be 
tween  the  states,  unless  forbidden  by  themselves. 

A  compromise  is  a  settlement  of  difficulties  by  mu 
tual  concessions.  Let  us  examine  the  mutuality  of  the 
concessions  which  Mr.  Clay's  resolutions  propose. 

In  the  first  place,  California  is  to  be  permitted  to 
remain  free  if  the  territories  of  New  Mexico  and  Utah  may 
be  opened  to  slavery.  But  California  is  free  already  ; 
free  by  her  own  act ;  free  without  any  concession  of 
theirs,  and  without  any  grace  but  the  grace  of  God. 
It  is  mainly  occupied  by  a  northern  population,  who 
do  their  own  work  with  their  own  hands,  or  their  own 
brains.  Fifty  hardy  gold  diggers  from  the  north  will 
never  stand  all  day  knee  deep  in  water,  shovel  earth, 
rock  washers,  &c.,  under  a  broiling  sun,  and  see  a  man 
with  his  fifty  slaves  standing  under  the  shade  of  a  tree, 
or  having  an  umbrella  held  over  his  head,  with  whip 
in  hand,  and  without  wetting  his  dainty  glove,  or  soil 
ing  his  japanned  boot,  pocket  as  much  at  night  as  the 
whole  of  them  together.  Or,  rather,  they  will  never 
suffer  institutions  to  exist  which  tolerate  such  unright 
eousness.  California,  therefore,  is  free  ;  as  free  as 
Massachusetts ;  and  Mr.  Clay  might  as  well  have  said 
in  terms,  that  whereas  Massachusetts  is  free,  therefore 
New  Mexico  and  Utah  shall  be  slave,  or  run  the  hazard 
of  being  so. 

The  next  point  of  Mr.  Clay's  compromise  is,  that 
Texas  shall  extend  her  south-western  boundary  from 
or  near  the  Nueces  to  the  Rio  Grande,  and  shall  receive, 
probably,  some  six  or  eight  millions  of  dollars  for 
withdrawing  her  claim  to  that  part  of  New  Mexico 
which  lies  east  of  the  last-named  river.  Now,  Texas 
has  no  rightful  or  plausible  claim  to  a  foot  of  all  this 


247 

territory.  But  suppose  it  to  be  a  subject  of  doubt,  and 
therefore  of  compromise.  The  mutuality,  then,  con 
sists  in  dividing  the  whole  territory  claimed  by  Texas, 
and  then  giving  her  a  valid  title  to  one  portion  of  it, 
and  paying  her  for  all  the  rest.  Texas,  or,  — what,  in  this 
connection  is  the  same  thing, — slavery  surrenders  ab 
solutely  nothing,  gets  a  good  title  to  some  seventy 
thousand  square  miles  of  territory,  and  pay  for  as 
much  more ! 

But  what  renders  it  almost  incredible  that  any  man 
could  soberly  submit  such  a  proposition  and  dare  to 
call  it  a  compromise,  is  this :  All  that  part  of  New 
Mexico  which  Texas  claims,  and  which  lies  between 
the  parallels  of  36°  30'  and  42°,  is,  by  the  resolutions  of 
annexation,  to  be  forever  free.  I  shall  consider  the 
constitutionality  of  these  resolutions  by  and  by  ;  1  now 
treat  them  as  valid.  Now  the  compromise  proposes  to 
buy  this  territory,  so  secured  to  freedom,  and  annex  it 
to  New  Mexico,  which  is  to  be  left  open  to  slavery. 
We  are  to  peril  all  the  broad  region  between  36°  30' 
and  42°,  and  pay  Texas  some  six  or  eight  millions  of 
dollars  for  the  privilege  of  doing  so  !  Mr.  Clay  is  not 
less  eminent  for  his  statesmanship  than  for  his  waggery. 
Were  he  to  succeed  in  playing  off  this  practical  joke  upon 
the  north,  and  were  it  not  for  the  horrible  consequences 
which  it  would  involve,  a  roar  of  laughter,  like  a  feu 
dc  joie,  would  run  down  the  course  of  the  ages.  As 
it  is,  the  laughter  will  be  "elsewhere." 

The  next  point  pertains  to  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
trade,  and  the  perpetuity  of  slavery,  in  the  District  of 
Columbia.  This  District  has  an  area  of  about,  fifty 
square  miles  ;  and  Mr.  Clay  proposes,  in  consideration 
of  transferring  its  slave  marts  to  Alexandria,  on  the 
Virginia  side,  or  to  some  convenient  place  in  Mont 
gomery  or  Prince  George's  county,  on  the  Maryland 
side,  to  divest  Congress  forever  of  its  right  of  "  exclu 
sive  legislation  "over  it.  Should  this  plan  prevail,  the 


248 

perpetuity  of  slavery  in  the  District  will  be  defended 
by  more  unassailable  and  impregnable  barriers  than 
any  other  institution  in  Christendom.  The  President 
has  a  veto  upon  Congress ;  but  two  thirds  of  both 
Houses  may  still  pass  any  Jaw,  notwithstanding  his 
dissent.  Mr.  Clay  proposes  to  give,  both  to  Maryland 
and  to  the  citizens  of  the  District,  a  veto  on  this  sub 
ject  ; — an  absolute  veto,  not  a  qualified  one,  like  that 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  but  one  that 
will  control,  not  majorities  merely,  but  an  absolute 
unanimity  in  both  branches  of  Congress.  By  his  plan, 
therefore,  three  separate,  independent  powers  are  to 
have  a  veto  upon  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia.  And  not  only  so,  but  while  it  will 
require  their  joint  or  concurrent  action  to  abolish  the 
institution,  any  one  of  them  can  preserve  it.  The  laws 
of  the  Medes  and  Persians  had  no  such  guaranties  for 
perpetuity  as  this. 

Mr.  Clay's  last  point  is  really  too  facetious.  So 
solemn  a  subject  does  not  permit  such  long-continued 
levity,  however  it  may  be  masked  by  sobriety  of  coun 
tenance.  It  is,  that  Congress  shall  make  more  effectual 
provision  for  the  capture  and  delivery  of  fugitive 
slaves  ;  and,  as  an  equivalent  for  this,  it  shall  bind 
itself  never  to  interfere  with  the  inter-state  traffic  in 
slaves.  We  are  to  catch  the  slaves  of  the  South,  and,  as 
though  this  were  a  grateful  privilege  to  us,  we  are  to 
allow  them  free  commerce  in  slaves,  coast  wise  or  inland. 
By  this  means,  slaves  can  be  transported  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Rio  Grande,  and  some  hundreds  of  miles  up  that 
river,  towards  New  Mexico,  instead  of  being  driven  in 
coffles  across  the  country.  The  compromise  is,  that 
for  every  slave  we  catch,  we  are  to  facilitate  the  pas 
sage  of  a  hundred  into  New  Mexico. 

Such  is  the  mutuality  of  Mr.  Clay's  compromises. 
They  are  such  compromises  as  the  wolf  offers  to  the 
lamb,  or  the  vulture  to  the  dove.  They  make  the 


rightful  admission  of  California  into  the  Union,  with 
JUT  free  constitution,  contingent  upon  openinir  the  new 
territories  to  slavery  :  they  ratify  one  part  of  the  pred- 
ainry  claim  nf  Texas,  and  propose  to  irive  he:-  mil 
lions  for  the  other  part  ;  they  give  an  unconditional 
veto  to  the  slate  of  Maryland  and  to  the  citizens  of 
thi.;  District  of  Columbia,  over  a  unanimous  vote  of 
both  Houses  of  Congress,  even  when  approved  by  the 
President  ;  in  connection  with  Mr.  Butler's  bill  and 
Mr.  Mason's  amendments,  they  expose  our  white  citi 
zens  to  grievous  penalties  and  imprisonments  for  not 
(L)ing  what  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 
h::s  decided  we  are  not  bound  to  do,  in  relation  to 
fugitive  slaves,  and  they  offer  our  colored 'Citizens  to 
l--e  kidnapped  and  spirited  away  into  bondage  ;  and 
they  foreclose,  in  favor  of  the  south,  the  disputed 
question  of  the  inter-state  commerce  in  slaves.  In 
one  particular  only  do  they  appear  to  concede  any 
thing  to  northern  rights,  or  northern  convictions,  or 
northern  feelings.  They  propose  to  transfer  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia  slave  trade  across  an  ideal  line  into 
Virginia  or  into  Maryland,  so  that  the  slave  planter  or 
slave  trader,  when  he  comes  to  our  American  Congo 
to  replenish  his  stock  of  human  cattle,  shall  be  obliged 
to  go  a  mile  or  two,  to  the  slave  marts,  instead  of 
walking  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue.  I  deem  this  to 
be  no  concession.  If  it  is  honorable  to  produce  com 
and  cotton,  it  is  honorable  to  buy  and  sell  them, — 
and  if  it  is  honorable  to  hold  beings  created  in  God's 
image  in  slavery,  it  is  honorable  to  stand  between  the 
producer  and  consumer,  and  to  make  merchandise  of 
the  bodies  and  the  souls  of  men.  Let  this  Light  of  the 
Age  be  set  upon  a  hill,  that  all  nations  may  behold  it. 
I  will  refer  to  Mr.  Bell's  resolutions  no  further  than 
to  say,  that  they  propose  the  formation  of  three  slave 
states  out  of  what  is  now  claimed  by  Texas,  one  of 
which  is  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union  forthwith  as 
an  offset  to  California. 


250 

Mr.  Buchanan  has  not  regarded  the  movements  of 
his  rival,  General  Cass,  with  indifference.  He  has 
spent  a  considerable  portion  of  the  winter  in  Wash 
ington,  and  it  is  understood  that  he  holds  out  the  Mis 
souri  compromise  line,  from  the  western  boundary  of 
Missouri  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  as  his  lure  to  the  south, 
for  their  favorable  regards  in  the  ensuing  presidential 
contest. 

In  a  chronological  order,  I  must  now  consider  some 
vitally  important  views,  which  have  been  submitted 
by  some  members  in  the  House,  and  by  Mr.  Webster 
and  others  in  the  Senate.  •  In  mentioning  the  name 
of  this  great  statesman,  and  in  avowing  that  I  am  one 
among  the  many  whom  his  recently  expressed  opin 
ions  have  failed  to  convince,  it  is  due  to  myself,  how 
ever  indifferent  it  may  be  to  him  or  to  his  friends,  that 
I  should  express  my  admiration  of  his  powers,  my 
gratitude  for  his  past  services,  and  the  diffidence  with 
which  I  dissented,  at  first,  from  his  views.  But  I 
have  pondered  upon  them  long,  and  the  longer  I  have 
pondered  the  more  questionable  they  appear.  I  shall 
therefore  venture  upon  the  perilous  task  of  inquiring 
into  their  correctness  ;  and  while  I  do  it  with  the  def 
erence  and  respect  which  belong  to  his  character,  I 
shall  do  it  also  with  that  fidelity  to  conscience  and  to 
judgment  that  belong  to  mine.  He  is  great,  but  truth 
is  greater  than  us  all. 

I  shall  confine  myself  mainly,  and  perhaps  wholly, 
to  Mr.  Webster's  views,  because  he  has  argued  the 
cause  of  the  south  with  vastly  more  ability  than  it  has 
been  argued  by  any  one  among  themselves.  If  his 
conclusions,  then,  be  not  tenable,  their  case  is  lost.* 

Mr.  Webster  casts  away  the   "  Proviso  "  altogether. 

*  All  my  quotations  from  Mr.  Webster  are  taken  from  the  edition 
of  his  speech  which  he  dedicated  to  the  "  PEOPLE  or  MASSACHUSETTS," 
March  18,  18oO.  Among  the  numerous  readings  which  have  ap 
peared,  I  suppose  this  to  be  the  most  authentic. 


251 

He  says,  "  If  a  resolution  or  a  law  wore  now  before 
us  to  provide  a  territorial  government  for  New  Mexico, 
1  ironlil  not  vote  to  put  any  prohibition  into  it  wliat- 
ever.n  (p.  44.)  The  reason  given  is,  that  slavery  is 
ahvady  excluded  from  "California  and  New  Mexico" 
"  by  the  law  of  nature,  of  physical  geography,  the  law 
of  the  formation  of  the  earth."  (p.  42.)  "California 
and  New  Mexico  are  Asiatic  in  their  formation  and 
scenery.  They  are  composed  of  vast  ridges  of  moun 
tains  of  enormous  height,  with  broken  ridges  and 
deep  valleys."  (p.  43.) 

Now,  this  is  drawing  moral  conclusions  from  phys 
ical  premises.  It  is  arguing  from  physics  to  meta 
physics.  It  is  determining  the  law  of  the  spirit  by 
geographical  phenomena.  It  is  undertaking  to  settle 
by  mountains  and  rivers,  and  not  by  the  Ten  Com 
mandments,  a  great  question  of  human  duty.  It 
abandons  the  second  commandment  of  Christ  and  all 
bills  of  rights  enacted  in  conformity  thereto,  and 
leaves  our  obligations  to  our  "neighbor"  to  be  deter 
mined  by  the  accidents  of  earth  and  water  and  air. 
To  ascertain  whether  a  people  will  obey  the  Divine 
command,  and  do  to  others  as  they  would  be  done  by, 
it  looks  at  the  thermometer.  What  a  problem  would 
this  be  :  "Required  the  height  above  the  level  of  the 
sea  at  which  the  oppressor  '  will  undo  the  heavy  bur 
dens  and  let  the  oppressed  go  free,  and  break  every 
yoke,'  —  to  be  determined  barometrically."  Alas! 
this  cannot  be  done.  Slavery  depends,  not  upon  cli 
mate,  but  upon  conscience.  Wherever  the  wicked 
passions  of  the  human  heart  can  go,  there  slavery  can 
go.  Slavery  is  an  effect.  Avarice,  sloth,  pride,  and 
the  love  of  domination,  are  its  cause.  In  ascending 
mountain  sides,  at  what  altitude  do  men  leave  these 
passions  behind  them  ?  Different  vegetable  growths 
are  to  be  found  at  different  heights,  depending  also 
upon  the  zone.  This  I  can  understand.  There  is  the 


altitude  of  the  palm,  the  altitude  of  the  oak,  the  alti 
tude  of  the  pine,  and,  far  above  them  all,  the  line  of 
perpetual  snow.  But,  in  regard  to  innocence  and 
guilt,  where  is  the  white  line?  How  high  up  can  a 
slaveholder  go  and  not  lose  his  free  agency  ?  At  what 
elevation  will  the  whip  fall  from  the  hand  of  the  mas 
ter,  and  the  fetter  from  the  limbs  of  the  slave?  There 
is  no  such  point.  Freedom  and  slave/y  on  the  one 
hand,  and  climate  and  geology  on  the  other,  are  in 
commensurable  quantities.  We  might  as  well  attempt 
to  determine  a  question  in  theology  by  the  cube  root, 
or  a  question  in  ethics  by  the  black  art.  Slavery, 
being  a  crime  founded  upon  human  passions,  can  go 
wherever  those  passions  are  unrestrained.  It  has  ex 
isted  in  Asia  from  the  earliest  ages,  notwithstanding 
its  "formation  and  scenery."  It  labors  and  groans  on 
the  flanks  of  the  Ural  mountains  now.  There  are 
to-day  forty-eight  millions  of  slaves  in  Russia,  not 
one  rood  of  which  comes  down  so  low  as  the  northern 
boundary  of  California  and  New  Mexico. 

Had  Mr.  Webster's  philosophy  been  correct,  then 
California  was  at  superfluous  pains  when  she  incorpo 
rated  the  ordinance  of  1787  into  her  constitution. 
Instead  of  saying  that  "slavery  and  involuntary  servi 
tude,  (except  for  crime,)  shall  be  forever  prohibited," 
she  should  have  said,  "  Whereas,  by  a  law  of  nature, 
of  physical  geography,  the  law  of  the  formation  of  the 
earth,"  "slavery  cannot  exist  in  California,"  therefore 
we  will  not  "  reaffirm  an  ordinance  of  nature,  nor  re- 
enact  the  will  of  God" 

Should  it  be  said  that  slavery  will  not  go  into  the 
new  territories,  because  it  is  unprofitable ;  I  ask,  Where 
is  it  profitable  ?  Where  is  ignorance  so  profitable  as 
knowledge  ?  Where  is  ungodliness  gain,  even  for  the 
things  of  this  life  ?  How  little  is  the  hand  worth  at 
one  end  of  an  arm,  if  there  is  not  a  brain  at  the  other ! 
Do  not  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  and  other 


253 

states,  furnish  witnesses  by  thousands  and  tens  of 
thousands  that  slavery  impoverishes  ?  Yet  with  what 
enthusiasm  they  cherish  it !  Generally,  ignorance  is  a 
necessary  concomitant  of  slavery.  Of  white  persons, 
over  twenty  years  of  age,  unable  to  read  and  write, 
there  were,  according  to  the  last  census,  58,787  in 
Virginia,  56,009  in  North  Carolina,  58,513  in  Ten 
nessee,  and  so  forth.  I  have  a  letter  before  me,  re 
ceived  this  morning,  dated  in  Indiana,  in  which  the 
writer  says,  he  removed  from  North  Carolina  in  1802, 
when  he  was  fourteen  years  old,  and  at  that  time  he 
had  never  seen  a  newspaper  in  his  life.  Can  there  be 
genius,  the  inventive  talent,  or  profitable  labor,  where 
ignorance  is  so  dense  ?  Can  the  oppression  that  tram 
ples  out  voluntary  industry,  enterprise,  intelligence,  and 
the  desire  of  independence,  conduce  to  riches  ?  Yet  this 
is  done  wherever  slavery  exists,  and  is  part  and  parcel 
of  its  working.  Is  any  other  form  of  robbery  profitable  ? 
Yet  individuals  and  communities  have  practised  it  and 
lived  by  it,  and  we  may  as  well  rely  upon  a  "  law  of 
physical  geography  "  to  arrest  the  one  as  the  other. 
It  is  not  poetry,  but  literal  truth,  that  the  breath  of  the 
slave  blasts  vegetation,  his  tears  poison  the  earth,  and 
his  groans  strike  it  with  sterility.  It  would  be  easy 
to  show  why  the  master  does  not  abandon  slavery, 
even  amid  the  desolation  with  which  it  has  surrounded 
him.  There  is  a  combination  of  poverty  and  pride, 
which  slavery  produces,  on  the  doctrine  of  natural 
appetence,  and  which,  therefore,  it  exactly  fits.  The 
helplessness  of  the  master  in  regard  to  all  personal 
wants  seems  to  necessitate  the  slavery  that  has  begot 
ten  it.  All  moral  and  religious  principles  are  lowered 
till  they  conform  to  the  daily  practice.  Custom  blinds 
conscience,  until,  without  any  attempt  to  emancipate 
or  ameliorate  their  victims,  men  can  preach  and  pray 
and  hold  slaves,  as  Hamlet's  grave  digger  jests  and 
sings  while  he  turns  up  skulls. 
22 


254 

But  slavery  cannot  go  into  California  or  New  Mex 
ico,  because  their  staple  productions  are  not  "  tobacco, 
corn,  cotton,  or  rice."  (p.  44.)  These  are  agricultural 
products.  But  is  slave  labor  confined  to  agriculture  ? 
Suppose  that  predial  slavery  will  not  become  com 
mon  in  the  new  territories.  Cannot  menial  ?  If 
slaves  cannot  do  field  work,  cannot  they  do  house 
work  ?  There  is  an  opening  for  a  hundred  thousand 
slaves  to-day  in  the  new  territories,  for  purposes  of 
domestic  labor.  And  beyond  this,  let  me  ask,  who 
possesses  any  such  geologic  vision  that,  at  a  distance 
of  a  thousand  miles,  he  can  penetrate  the  valleys  and 
gorges  of  New  Mexico,  and  say  that  gold  will  not  yet 
be  found  there  as  it  is  in  California,  —  not  in  sand  and 
gravel  only,  but  in  forty-eight-pounders  and  fifty-sixes? 
This  is  the  very  kind  of  labor  on  which  slaves,  in  all 
time,  have  been  so  extensively  employed,  —  the  very 
labor  on  which  a  million  of  slaves  in  Hispaniola  lost 
their  lives,  within  a  few  years  after  its  discovery  by 
Columbus.  Gold  deposits  are  now  worked  within 
twenty-five  miles  of  Santa  Fe.  The  last  account 
which  I  have  seen,  of  a  company  of  emigrants  passing 
from  Santa  Fe  to  California  by  the  River  Gila,  an 
nounces  rich  discoveries  of  gold  upon  that  river.  A 
fellow-citizen  of  mine  has  just  returned  home,  who 
says  he  saw  a  slave  sold  at  the  mines  in  California,  in 
September  last.  As  yet,  the  distant  regions  of  the 
Gila  and  the  Colorado  cannot  be  worked,  because  of 
the  Apaches,  the  Utahs,  and  other  tribes  of  Indians. 
But  admit  slavery  there,  and  the  power  of  the  govern 
ment  will  be  invoked  to  exterminate  these  Indians,  as 
it  was  before  to  exterminate  the  Cherokees  and  Semi- 
noles,  —  not  to  drive  them  beyond  the  Mississippi,  but 
beyond  the  Styx.  A  few  days  since  a  letter  was  pub 
lished  in  the  papers,  dated  on  board  a  steamer  descend 
ing  the  Mississippi,  which  stated  that  a  considerable 
number  of  slaves  were  on  board,  bound  for  California, 


under  an  agreement  \vitli  their  masters  that  they  should 
!><>  (Yeo  after  serving  two  years  at  the  mines.  We 
know,  too.  that  the  reason  assigned  for  incorporating  a 
provision  in  the  constitution  of  California,  authorizing 
its  legislature  to  pass  laws  for  the  exclusion  of  free 
blacks  from  the  state,  was,  that  slaves  would  be  brought 
there  under  this  very  form  of  agreement,  and  by  and 
by  the  country  would  be  overspread  by  people  of 
color  who  had  bought  their  freedom.  The  sagacious 
men  who  framed  the  California  constitution  came  from 
all  parts  of  the  territory,  and,  being  collected  on  the 
spot,  having  surveyed  all  its  mountains,  having  breathed 
its  air  at  all  temperatures,  and  turned  up  its  golden 
soil,  —  these  men  had  never  discovered  any  "  law 
of  physical  geography'"'  which  the  fell  spirit  of  slavery 
could  not  transgress.  Slaves  were  carried  into  Oregon, 
ten  degrees  of  latitude  higher  up.  Its  colonists  reen- 
acted  the  ordinance  of  1787  before  Congress  gave  them 
a  territorial  government.  In  the  territorial  govern 
ment  that  was  given  them,  the  prohibition  was  insert 
ed  ;  and  President  Polk  signed  the  bill,  with  an  ex 
press  protest,  that  he  ratified  this  exclusion  of  slavery 
only  hecause  the  country  lay  north  of  the  Missouri 
compromise  line  j  but  declared  that,  had  it  embraced  the 
very  region  in  question,  he  would  have  vetoed  the  bill. 
General  Cass  never  took  the  ground  that  slavery 
could  not  exist  in  the  new  territories  ;  and  no  inconsid 
erable  part  of  the  opposition  made  to  him  in  Massachu 
setts  and  in  other  free  states,  was  placed  expressly  upon 
the  ground  that  he  would  not  prohibit  it.  Mr.  Web 
ster,  in  his  Marshfield  speech,  September  1,  1848,  op 
posed  the  election  of  General  Cass,  because,  through 
his  recreancy  to  northern  principles,  slavery  would 
invade  the  territories.  This  was  expressed  with  his 
usual  clearness  and  force,  as  follows :  — 

"  He,  [General  CASS,]  will  surely  have  the  Senate  ;  and  with 
the  patronage  of  the  government,  with  every  interest  that  he, 


256 

as  a  northern  man,  can  bring  to  bear,  cooperating  with  every 
interest  that  the  south  can  bring  to  bear,  we  cry  safety  before 
we  are  out  of  the  woods,  if  we  feel  that  there  is  no  danger  as 
to  these  new  territories" 

Yet  Mr.  Webster  now  says,  that  to  support  the 
"Proviso,"  would  "do  disgrace  to  his  own  under 
standing."  (p.  46.) 

During  the  same  campaign,  also,  the  Hon.  Rufus 
Choate,  one  of  the  most  eloquent  men  in  New  England, 
and  known  to  be  the  personal  friend  of  Mr.  Webster, 
delivered  a  speech  at  Salem,  in  which  the  following 
passage  occurs  :  — 

"  Tt  is  the  passage  of  a  law  to  say  that  California  and  New 
Mexico  shall  remain  forever  free.  That  is,  fellow-citizens, 
undoubtedly  an  object  of  great  and  transcendent  importance: 
for  there  is  none  who  will  deny  that  we  should  go  up  to  the 
very  limits  of  the  constitution  itself,  and  with  the  wisdom  of 
the  wisest,  and  zeal  of  the  most  zealous,  should  unite  to  ac 
complish  this  great  object,  and  to  defeat  the  always  detested, 
and  forever  to  be  detested  object  of  the  dark  ambition  of 
that  candidate  of  the  Baltimore  convention,  (General  CASS,) 
who  has  ventured  to  pledge  himself  in  advance  that  he  will 
veto  the  future  law  of  freedom  ;  arid  may  God  avert  the  mad 
ness  of  all  those  who  hate  slavery  and  love  freedom,  that 
would  unite  in  putting  him  in  the  place  where  his  thrice 
accursed  pledge  may  be  redeemed  !  ....  Is  .there  a 
Whig  upon  this  floor  who  doubts  that  the  strength  of  the  Whig 
party  next  March  will  insure  freedom  to  California  and  New 
Mexico,  if  by  the  constitution  they  are  entitled  to  freedom  at 
all  ?  Is  there  a  member  of  Congress  that  would  not  vote  for 
freedom  ?  You  know  there  is  not  one.  Did  not  every  Whig 
member  of  Congress  from  the  free  states  vote  at  the  last  ses 
sion  for  freedom  ?  You  know  that  every  man  of  them  re 
turned  home  covered  with  the  thanks  of  his  constituents  for 
that  vote.  Is  there  a  single  Wrhig  constituency,  in  any  free 
state  in  this  country,  that  would  return  any  man  that  would 
not  vote  for  freedom  1  Do  you  believe  that  Daniel  Webster 
himself  could  he  returned  if  there  was  the  least  doubt  upon 
the  question  1  " 


257 

Mr.  Choate  then  adds  :   "  Upon  this  question  alone, 

we  always  differ  from  those  Whigs  of  the  south  ;  and 

on    that    one,  we  propose   simply  (o  vote  them  ilmrti.^ 

Webster  now  says  he  will  not  join  in  voting  them 


i'ndiT  such  circumstances,  is  it  frivolous  or  captious 
to  ask  for  something  more  than  a  dogmatic  assertion 
that  slavery  cannot  impregnate  these  new  regions,  and 
cause  them  to  breed  monsters  forever?  On  a  subject 
of  such  infinite  importance  I  cannot  be  satisfied  with  a 
dictum  :  I  want  a  demonstration.  I  cannot  accept  the 
prophecy  without  inquiring  what  spirit  inspired  the 
prophet.  As  a  revelation  from  Heaven,  it  would  be  most 
delightful  ;  but,  as  it  conflicts  with  all  human  experi 
ence,  it  requires  at  least  one  undoubted  miracle  to  at 
test  the  divinity  of  its  origin. 

According  to  the  last  census,  there  were  more  than 
eight  thousand  persons  of  African  blood  in  Massachu 
setts.  Abolish  the  moral  and  religious  convictions  of 
our  people,  let  slavery  appear  to  be  in  their  sight  not 
only  lawful  and  creditable,  but  desirable  as  a  badge  of 
aristocratic  distinction,  and  as  a  "  political,  social,  moral, 
and  religious  blessing,"  and  what  obstacle  would  pre 
vent  these  eight  thousand  persons  from  being  turned 
into  slaves,  on  any  day,  by  the  easy,  cheap,  and  short 
hand  kidnapping  of  a  legislative  act  ?  Africans  can 
exist  here,  for  the  best  of  all  reasons,  —  they  do  exist 
here.  A  state  of  slavery  would  not  stop  their  respira 
tion,  nor  cause  them  to  vanish  "  into  thin  air."  Think, 
for  a  moment,  of  the  complaints  we  constantly  hear  in 
certain  circles,  of  the  difficulty  arid  vexatiousness  of  com 
manding  domestic  service.  If  no  moral  or  religious 
objection  existed  against  holding  slaves,  would  not 
many  of  those  respectable  and  opulent  gentlemen  who 
signed  tiie  letter  of  thanks  to  Mr.  Webster,  and  hun 
dreds  of  others  indeed,  instead  of  applying  to  intelli 
gence  offices,  or  visiting  emigrant  ships  for  "  domes- 
22* 


258 

tics,"  as  we  call  them,  go  at  once  to  the  auction  room 
and  buy  a  man  or  a  woman  with  as  little  hesitancy  or 
compunction  as  they  now  send  to  Brighton  for  beeves, 
or  go  to  TattersalPs  for  a  horse  ?  If  the  cold  of  the 
higher  latitudes  checks  the  flow  of  African  blood,  or 
benumbs  African  limbs,  the  slaveholder  knows  very 
well  that  a  trifling  extra  expense  for  whips  will  make 
up  for  the  difference. 

But  suppose  a  doubt  could  be  reasonably  entertained 
about  the  invasion  of  the  new  territories  by  slavery. 
Even  suppose  the  chances  to  preponderate  against  it. 
What  then  ?  Are  AVC  to  submit  a  question  of  human 
liberty  over  vast  regions  and  for  an  indefinite  extent  of 
time,  to  the  determination  of  chance  ?  With  all  my 
faculties  I  say,  No  !  Let  me  ask  any  man,  let  me  re 
spectfully  ask  Mr.  Webster  himself,  if  it  were  his  own 
father  and  mother,  and  brothers  and  sisters,  and  sons 
and  daughters,  who  were  in  peril  of  such  a  fate, 
whether  he  would  abandon  them  to  chance,  —  even  to 
a  favorable  chance.  Would  he  suffer  their  fate  to  be 
determined  by  dice  or  divination,  when  positive  pro 
hibition  was  in  his  power?  And  by  what  rule  of 
Christian  morality,  or  even  of  enlightened  heathen 
morality,  can  we  deal  differently  with  the  kindred  of 
others  from  what  we  would  with  our  own  ?  He  is  not 
a  Christian  whose  humanity  is  bounded  by  the  legal 
degrees  of  blood,  or  by  general  types  of  feature. 

But  Mr.  Webster  would  not  "  taunt  "  the  south. 
Neither  would  I.  I  would  not  taunt  any  honorable  man, 
much  less  a  criminal.  Still,  when  the  most  precious  in 
terests  of  humanity  are  in  peril,  I  would  not  be  timid.  I 
would  not  stop  too  long  to  cull  lovers'  phrases.  Standing 
under  the  eye  of  God,  in  the  forum  of  the  world  and 
before  the  august  tribunal  of  posterity,  when  the  liti 
gants  are  freedom  and  tyranny,  and  human  happiness 
and  human  misery  the  prize  they  contest,  it  should 
happen  to  the  sworn  advocate  of  liberty,  as  Q,uintilian 


259 

says  it  did  to  Demosthenes,  "  not  to  speak  and  to 
plead,  but  to  thunder  and  to  lighten."  Mr.  Webster 
would  not  taunt  the  south  ;  and  yet  I  say  the  south 
were  never  so  insulted  before  as  he  has  insulted  them. 
Common  scoffs,  jeers,  vilifications,  are  flattery  and 
sycophancy  compared  with  the  indignities  he  heaped 
upon  them.  Look  at  the  facts.  The  south  waged 
war  with  .Mexico  from  one,  and  only  one,  motive  ;  for 
one,  and  only  one,  object, — the  extension  of  slavery. 
They  refused  peace  unless  it  surrendered  territory. 
That  territory  must  be  south  of  the  abhorred  line  of 
36°  30'.  The  same  President  who  abandoned  the 
broad  belt  of  country  on  our  northern  frontier,  from 
49°  to  54°  40',  to  which  we  had,  in  his  own  words, 
"  an  unquestionable  title,"  would  allow  no  prohibition 
of  slavery  to  be  imposed  upon  the  territory  which 
Mexico  ceded,  though  she  would  bury  it  a  foot  deep 
in  gold.  The  Proviso  had  been  resisted  in  all  forms, 
from  the  beginning.  Southern  Whigs  voted  against 
the  ratification  of  the  treaty,  foreseeing  the  struggle 
that  was  to  follow.  Desperate  efforts  had  been  made, 
at  the  close  of  the  last  session  of  Congress,  to  smuggle 
in  an  unrestricted  territorial  government,  against  all 
parliamentary  rule  and  all  constitutional  implication. 
The  whole  south,  as  one  man,  claimed  it  as  a  "  de- 
scribable,  weighable,  estimable,  tangible,"  and  most 
valuable  "  right  "  to  carry  slaves  there.  Calhoun,  Ber- 
rien,  Badger,  Mason,  Davis,  —  the  whole  southern 
phalanx,  Whig  and  Democrat,  pleaded  for  it,  argued  for 
it,  and  most  of  them  declared  themselves  ready  to  fight 
for  it  ;  and  yet  Mr.  Webster  rises  in  his  place,  and  tells 
them  they  are  all  moonstruck,  hallucinated,  fatuous  ; 
because  "  an  ordinance  of  nature  and  the  will  of  God  " 
had  settled  this  question  against  them  from  the  begin 
ning  of  the  world.  Mr.  Calhoun  said,  immediately 
after  this  speech.  "  Give  us  free  scope  and  time  enough, 
and  we  will  take  care  of  the  rest." 


260 

Mr.  MASON  said, — 

"  We  have  heard  here  from  various  quarters,  and  from 
high  quarters,  and  repeated  on  all  hands,  —  repeated  here 
again  to-day  by  the  honorable  senator  from  Illinois,  [Mr. 
SHIELDS,]  that  there  is  a  law  of  nature  which  excludes  the 
southern  people  from  every  portion  of  the  state  of  California. 
I  know  of  no  such  law  of  nature,  —  none  whatever  ;  but  I 
do  know  the  contrary,  that  if  California  had  been  organized 
with  a  territorial  form  of  government  only,  and  for  which,  at 
the  last  two  sessions  of  Congress,  she  has  obtained  the  entire 
southern  vote,  the  people  of  the  Southern  States  would  have 
gone  there  freely,  and  have  taken  their  slaves  there  in  great 
numbers.  They  would  have  done  so,  because  the  value  of  the 
labor  of  that  class  would  have  been  augmented  to  them  many 
hundred  fold.  Why,  in  the  debates  which  took  place  in  the 
convention  in  California  which  formed  the  constitution,  and 
which  any  senator  can  now  read  for  himself,  after  the  pro 
vision  excluding  slavery  was  agreed  upon,  it  was  proposed  to 
prohibit  the  African  race  altogether,  free  as  well  as  bond.  A 
debate  arose  upon  it,  and  the  ground  was  distinctly  taken,  as 
shown  in  those  debates,  that  if  the  entire  African  race  was 
not  excluded,  their  labor  would  be  found  so  valuable  that  the 
owners  of  slaves  would  bring  them  there,  even  though  slavery 
were  prohibited,  under  a  contract  to  manumit  them  in  two  or 
three  years.  And  it  required  very  little  reasoning,  on  the 
part  of  those  opposed  to  this  class  of  population,  to  show  that 
the  productiveness  of  their  labor  would  be  such  as  to  cause 
that  result.  An  estimate  was  gone  into  with  reference  to  the 
value  of  the  labor  of  this  class  of  people,  showing  that  it 
would  be  increased  to  such  an  extent  in  the  mines  of  Cali 
fornia,  that  they  could  not  be  kept  out.  It  was  agreed  that 
the  labor  of  a  slave  in  any  one  of  the  states  from  which  they 
would  be  taken,  was  not  worth  more  than  one  hundred  or  one 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  year,  and  that  in  California  it 
would  be  worth  from  four  to  six  thousand  dollars.  They 
would  work  themselves  free  in  one  or  two  years,  and  thus  the 
country  would  be  filled  by  a  class  of  free  blacks,  and  their 
former  owners  have  an  excellent  bargain  in  taking  them 
there." 

Yet  Mr.  Webster  stands  up  before  all  this  array,  and 


261 

says,  "Gentlemen,  you  are  beside  yourselves.  You 
have  eaten  'of  the  insane  root.'  You  would  look 
more  in  character  should  you  put  on  the  'cap  and 
hells.'  In  sober  sense,  in  seeing  his  object  clearly  and 
in  pursuing  it  directly,  Don  Quixote  was  Doctor 
Franklin,  compared  with  you.  The  dog  in  the  fable, 
who  dropped  his  meat  to  snap  at  his  shadow,  is  no  al 
legory  in  your  case.  I  see  two  classes  around  me,  — 
wise  men  and  fools  ;  you  do  not  belong  to  the  former. 
The  chancellor,  who  keeps  the  king's  idiots,  should 
have  custody  of  you."  Such  is  a  faithful  abstract  of 
what  Mr.  Webster  said  to  southern  senators,  and, 
through  them,  to  all  the  south. 

Here  certainly  was  a  reflection  upon  the  understand 
ing  and  intelligence  of  the  south,  such  as  never  was 
cast  upon  them  before.  But  the  balm  went  with  the 
sting.  They  bore  the  aifront  to  their  judgments,  be 
cause  it  was  so  grateful  to  their  politics  and  pockets. 
I  think  it  no  injustice  to  those  senators  to  say,  that  they 
would  have  nearly  torn  Mr.  Webster  in  pieces  for  such 
a  collective  insult,  had  it  not  promised  to  add,  what 
Mr.  Mason  called  u  many  hundred  fold,"  to  their  indi 
vidual  property,  and  to  secure  and  perpetuate  their  po 
litical  ascendency. 

To  help  our  conceptions  in  regard  to  Mr.  Webster's 
course  on  this  subject,  let  us  imagine  a  parallel  case,  — 
or,  rather,  an  approximate  one,  for  there  can  be  no  par 
allel.  Suppose  a  contest  between  the  north  and  the 
south,  on  the  subject  of  the  tariff,  to  have  been  raging 
for  years.  The  sober  blood  of  the  north  is  heated  to 
the  fever  point.  The  newspapers  treat  of  nothing  else. 
Public  meetings  and  private  conversations  discuss  no 
other  theme.  Hundreds  of  delegates  wait  upon  Con 
gress  to  add,  if  it  be  but  a  feather's  weight,  to  the 
scale  which  holds  their  interests.  Petitions  flow  in, 
in  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands.  It  is  announced 
that  Mr.  Calhoun  will  pour  out  his  great  mind  on  the 


262 

subject.  Expectation  is  on  tiptoe.  All  eyes,  from  all 
sides  of  the  country,  are  turned  towards  Washington, 
as  the  Moslem's  to  Mecca.  The  senate  chamber  is 
packed,  arid  the  illustrious  senator  rises.  After  an  his 
toric  sketch  of  existing  difficulties,  after  reading  from 
the  speeches  which  he  made  in  1832  and  in  1846,  he 
proceeds  to  say  that  he  withdraws  all  opposition  to  a 
tariff,  —  to  any  tariff !  He  will  not  offend  the  delicate 
nerves  of  northern  manufacturers  by  further  hostility. 
Were  a  bill  then  before  him,  he  would  not  oppose  it. 
"  Take  the  schedules,"  says  he,  scornfully,  to  northern 
senators,  "  and  fill  up  the  blanks  from  A  to  Z  with 
what  per  centages  you  please.  For  ad  valorem  rates, 
put  in  minimums  and  rnaximurns  at  your  pleasure.  I 
will  '  taunt '  you  no  longer.  I  am  for  peace  and  the 
glorious  Union.  I  have  discovered  an  irrepealable  and 
irreversible  law  of  nature,  which  overrules  all  the  de 
vices  of  men.  You  cannot  make  one  yard  of  woollens 
or  cottons  in  New  England.  There,  water  has  no 
gravity,  steam  has  no  force,  and  wheels  will  not  re 
volve.  In  Vermont  and  New  York,  wool  will  not 
grow  on  sheep's  backs.  I  have  penetrated  the  geology 
of  Pennsylvania,  and  through  all  its  stratifications 
there  is  not  a  thimble  full  of  coal,  nor  an  ounce  of  iron 
ore  ;  and,  if  there  were,  combustion  would  not  help  to 
forge  it  ;  for  oxygen  and  carbon  are  divorced.  As 
Massachusetts  contributed  one  third  of  the  men  and 
one  third  of  the  money  to  carry  on  the  revolutionary 
war,  I  am  willing  to  compensate  her  for  her  lost  blood 
and  treasure  to  the  amount  of  hundreds  of  millions 
of  dollars,  with  which  she  may  fertilize  the  barrenness 
of  her  genius,  and  indulge  her  insane  love  for  churches 
and  schools."  Had  the  great  southern  senator  spoken 
thus,  I  think  that  even  idolatrous,  man-worshipping 
South  Carolina,  —  a  state  which  Mr.  Calhoun  has 
ruled  and  moved  for  the  last  twenty-five  years,  as  a 
puppet  showman  plays  Punch  and  Judy,  —  would 


263 

have  sent  forth,  through  all  her  organs,  a  voice  of  unan 
imous  dissent. 

As  much  as  freedom  is  higher  than  tariff,  so  much 
stronger  than  (heir  dissent  should  be  ours. 

Mr.  \Vebstor's  averment  that  he  would  not  "  reaffirm 
an  ordinance  of  nature,  nor  reenact  the  will  of  God," 
(p.  44,)  has  been  commented  on  more  pungently  than  I 
am  able  or  willing  to  do.  It  has  been  well  said  that  all 
law  and  all  volition  must  be  in  harmony  with  the  will 
of  the  Good  Spirit,  or  with  that  of  the  evil  one  ;  and 
if  we  will  not  reenact  the  will  of  the  former,  then, 
either  all  legislation  ceases,  or  we  must  register  the  de 
crees  of  the  latter.  But  one  important  and  pertinent 
consideration  belongs  to  this  subject,  which  I  have  no 
where  seen  developed.  It  is  this  :  Endless  doubts  and 
contradictions  exist  among  men,  as  to  what  is  the  will 
of  God;  and  on  no  subject  is  there  a  wider  diversity 
of  opinion  than  on  this  very  subject  of  slavery. 
Whose  law  was  reenacted  by  the  ordinance  of  1787  ? 
whose,  when  the  African  slave  trade  was  prohibited  ? 
whose,  when  it  was  declared  piracy?  True,  it  is  use 
less  to  put  upon  our  statute  books  an  astronomical  law, 
regulating  sunrise,  or  high  tides  ;  but  that  is  physical 
.and  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  man,  while  slavery  be 
longs  to  morals,  and  is  within  the  jurisdiction  of  man. 
Cease  to  transcribe  upon  the  statute  book  what  our 
wisest  and  best  men  believe  to  be  the  will  of  God  in 
regard  to  our  worldly  affairs,  and  the  passions  which 
we  think  appropriate  to  devils  will  soon  take  possession 
of  society.  In  regard  to  slavery,  piracy,  and  so  forth, 
there  are  multitudes  of  men  whose  fear  of  the  penal 
sanctions  of  another  life  is  very  much  aided  by  a  little 
salutary  fine  and  imprisonment  in  this.  Look  at  that 
noble  array  of  principles  which  is  contained  in  the 
Declaration  of  Rights  in  the  constitution  of  Massachu 
setts.  Is  it  not  a  most  grand  and  beautiful  exposition 
of  "  the  will  of  God,"  — a  transcript,  as  it  were,  from 


264 

the  Book  of  Life  ?  So  of  the  amendments  to  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States.  Yet  our  fathers 
thought  it  no  tampering  with  holy  things  to  enact 
them  ;  and,  in  times  of  struggle  and  peril,  they  have 
been  to  many  a  tempted  man  as  an  anchor  to  the  soul, 
sure  and  steadfast. 

I  approach  Mr.  Webster's  treatment  of  the  Texas 
question  with  no  ordinary  anxiety.  Having  been  ac 
customed  from  my  very  boyhood  to  regard  him  as  the 
almost  infallible  expounder  of  constitutional  law,  it  is 
impossible  to  describe  the  struggle,  the  revulsion  of 
mind,  with  which  I  have  passed  from  an  instructed 
and  joyous  acquiescence  in  his  former  opinions  to  un 
hesitating  dissent  from  his  present  ones. 

I  must  premise  that  I  cannot  see  any  necessary  or 
beneficial  connection  between  the  subject  of  new 
Texan  states  and  the  admission  of  California  and  the 
government  of  the  territories.  The  former  refers  to 
some  indefinite  future,  when,  from  its  fruitful  womb 
of  slavery,  Texas  shall  seek  to  cast  forth  an  untimely 
birth.  In  this  excited  state  of  the  country,  at  this 
critical  juncture  of  our  affairs,  when  there  is  sober  talk 
of  massacring  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Representa 
tives  on  their  own  floor,  and  a  senator,  instead  of 
merely  threatening  to  hang  a  brother  senator  on  the 
highest  tree,  provided  he  could  catch  him  in  his  own 
state,  now  draws  a  revolver  of  six  barrels  on  another 
brother  senator,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  in  mid-ses 
sion  ;  at  such  a  time,  I  say,  when,  however  few  Abels 
there  may  be  at  work  in  the  political  field,  there  are 
Cains  more  than  enough,  would  it  not  have  been  well 
to  have  acted  upon  the  precept,  "  Sufficient  unto  the 
day  is  the  evil  thereof"  ? 

As  the  basis  of  his  argument,  Mr.  Webster  quotes 
the  following  resolution  for  the  admission  of  Texas, 
passed  March  1,  1845  :  — 

"  New  states  of   convenient   size,  not  exceeding  four   in 


266 

number,  in  addition  to  said  State  of  Texas,  and  having  suffi 
cient  population,  may  hereafter,  by  the  consent  of  the  said 
state,  be  formed  out  of  the  territory  thereof,  which  shall  be 
entitled  to  admission  under  the  provisions  of  the  federal  con 
stitution.  And  such  states  as  may  be  formed  out  of  that  por 
tion  of  said  territory  lying  south  of  36°  30'  north  latitude, 
commonly  known  as  the  Missouri  compromise  line,  shall  be 
admitted  into  the  Union  with  or  without  slavery,  as  the  people 
of  each  state  asking  admission  may  desire  ;  and  in  such  state 
or  states  as  shall  be  formed  out  of  said  territory  north  of  said 
Missouri  compromise  line,  slavery  or  involuntary  servitude, 
(except  for  crime,)  shall  be  prohibited." 

Note  here,  first,  that  only  "four  "  states  are  to  be 
admitted  in  "addition  to  said  state  of  Texas:"  and 
second,  that  "such  state  or  states,"  (in  the  plural,)  as 
shall  be  formed  from  territory  north  of  36°  30',  shall 
be  free.  If  tico,  or  only  one  free  state  is  to  exist  on 
the  north  side  of  the  line,  then  how  many  will  be  left 
for  the  south  side  ?  I  should  expose  myself  to  ridicule 
were  I  to  set  it  down  arithmetically,  four  minus  one, 
equal  to  three.  Yet  Mr.  Webster  says,  "  The  guaranty 
is,  that  new  states  shall  be  made  out  of  it,  [the  Texan 
territory.]  and  that  such  states  as  are  formed  out  of 
that  portion  of  Texas  lying  south  of  36°  30',  may 
come  in  as  slave  states,  to  the  number  of  FOUR,  in  ad 
dition  to  the  state  then  in  existence,  and  admitted  at 
that  time  by  these  resolutions."  (p.  29.) 

Here  Mr.  Webster  gives  outright  to  the  south  and  to 
slavery,  one  more  state  than  was  contracted  for,  —  as 
suming  the  contract  to  be  valid.  He  makes  a  donation, 
a  gratuity,  of  an  entire  slave  state,  larger  than  many 
a  European  principality.  He  transfers  a  whole  state, 
with  all  its  beating  hearts,  present  and  future;  with  all 
its  infinite  susceptibilities  of  weal  and  woe.  from  the 
side  of  freedom  to  that  of  slavery,  in  the  leger  book 
of  humanity.  What  a  bridal  gift  for  the  harlot  of 
bondage ! 

Was  not  the  bargain  hard  enough,  according  to  its 
23 


266 

terms  ?  Must  we  fulfil  it,  and  go  beyond  it  ?  Is  a 
slave  state,  which  dooms  our  brethren  of  the  human 
race,  perhaps  interminably,  to  the  vassal's  fate,  so  insig 
nificant  a  trifle,  that  it  may  be  flung  in,  as  small  change 
on  the  settlement  of  an  account  ?  Has  the  south  been 
so  generous  a  copartner  as  to  deserve  this  distinguished 
token  of  our  gratitude  ? 

Why,  by  parity  of  reasoning,  could  he  not  have 
claimed  all  the  four  states,  "  in  addition  to  said  state 
of  Texas,"  as  free  states  ?  The  resolutions  divide  the 
territory  into  two  parts,  one  north  and  one  south  of 
the  line  of  36°  30'.  Could  not  Mr.  Webster  have 
claimed  the  four  states  for  freedom,  with  as  sound  logic 
and  with  far  better  humanity  than  he  surrendered  them 
all  to  slavery  ?  When  Texas  and  the  south  have  got 
their  slave  states  "  to  the  number  of  four  "  into  the 
Union,  whence  are  we  to  obtain  our  one  or  more  free 
states?  The  contract  will  have  been  executed,  and 
the  consent  of  Texas  for  another  state  will  be  with 
held. 

Notwithstanding  all  this,  Mr.  Webster  affirms  the 
right  of  slavery  to  four  more  states,  in  the  following 
words  :  "  I  know  no  form  of  legislation  which  can 
strengthen  this.  I  know  no  mode  of  recognition  that 
can  add  a  tittle  of  weight  to  it."  Catching  the  tone 
of  his  asseveration,  I  respond  that  I  know  no  form  of 
statement,  nor  process  of  reasoning,  which  can  make 
it  more  clear,  that  this  is  an  absolute  and  wanton  sur 
render  of  the  rights  of  the  north  and  the  rights  of 
humanity. 

But  I  hold  the  Texan  resolutions  to  have  been  ut 
terly  void  ;  and  proceed  to  give  the  reasons  for  my 
opinion. 

I  begin  by  quoting  Mr.  Webster  against  himself.  In 
an  address  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  emanating 
from  the  Massachusetts  Anti-Texas  state  convention, 
held  January  29th,  1845,  the  subjoined  passage,  which  is 


267 

understood,  or  rather,  I  may  say,  is  now  well  known, 
to  have  been  dictated  by  Mr.  Webster  himself,  may  be 
found  :  — 

"  But  we  desire  not  to  be  misunderstood.  According  to 
our  convictions,  there  is  no  power  in  any  branch  of  the  gov 
ernment,  or  all  its  branches,  to  annex  foreign  territory  to  this 
I  nioii.  \Ve  have  made  the  foregoing  remarks  only  to  show, 
that,  if  any  fair  construction  could  show  such  a  power  to  ex 
ist  any  where,  or  to  he  exercised  in  any  form,  yet  the  manner 
of  its  exercise  now  proposed  is  destitute  of  all  decent  semblance 
of  constitutional  propriety." 

Thus  cancelling  the  authority  of  Mr.  Webster  in 
1850  by  the  authority  of  Mr.  Webster  in  1845,  I  pro 
ceed  with  the  argument. 

Though  the  annexation  of  Texas  was  in  pursuance 
of  a  void  stipulation,  yet  it  is  a  clear  principle  of  law, 
that  when  a  contract  void  between  the  parties,  has 
been  executed  by  them,  it  cannot  then  be  annulled.  If 
executed,  it  becomes  valid,  not  by  virtue  of  the  con 
tract  but  by  virtue  of  the  execution.  I  bow  to  this 
legal  principle,  and  would  fulfil  it.  But  any  indepen 
dent  stipulation  which  remains  unexecuted,  remains 
invalid.  Such  is  that  part  of  the  annexation  resolu 
tions  which  provides  for  the  admission  of  a  brood  of 
Texan  states.  The  resolutions  themselves  say,  in  ex 
press  terms,  that  the  new  states  are  to  be  admitted 
"under  the  provisions  of  the  federal  constitution;" 
and  the  federal  constitution  says,  "  New  states  may  be 
admitted  by  the  Congress  into  this  Union."  By  what 
Congress?  Plainly,  by  the  Congress  in  session  at  the 
time  when  application  for  admission  is  made  ;  and  by 
no  other.  The  fourth  Texan  state  may  not  be  ready 
for  admission  for  fifty  years  to  come  ;  and  could  the 
Congress  of  1845  bind  the  Congress  of  1900  ?  The 
Congress  of  1900,  and  all  future  Congresses,  will  de 
rive  their  authority  from  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  not  from  any  preceding  Congress.  Put  the 


268 

case  in  a  negative  form.  Could  the  Congress  of  1845 
bind  all  future  Congresses  not  to  admit  new  states,  and 
thus,  pro  tanto,  annul  the  constitution  ?  Positive  or 
negative,  the  result  is  the  same.  No  previous  Con 
gress,  on  such  a  subject,  can  enlarge  or  limit  the  power 
of  a  subsequent  one.  Whenever,  therefore,  the  ques 
tion  of  a  new  Texan  state  comes  up  for  consider 
ation,  the  Congress  then  in  being  must  decide  it  on  its 
own  merits,  untrammelled  by  any  thing  their  predeces 
sors  have  done  ;  and,  especially,  free  from  a  law  which, 
while  similar  in  spirit,  is  a  thousand  times  more  odious 
in  principle  than  statutes  of  mortmain. 

Admitting  that  a  future  Congress,  on  such  a  subject, 
might  be  bound  by  a  treaty,  I  answer  that  there  was 
no  treaty  ;  while  the  fact  that  a  treaty  clause  was 
introduced  into  the  resolutions,  in  the  Senate,  for  the 
sake  of  obtaining  certain  votes  that  would  never  other 
wise  have  been  given  in  their  favor,  and  under  an  ex 
press  pledge  from  the  Executive  that  the  method  by 
treaty  should  be  adopted,  which  pledge  was  forthwith 
iniquitously  broken  by  the  President,  leaves  no  element 
of  baseness  and  fraud  by  which  this  proceeding  was 
not  contaminated.  In  the  name  of  the  constitution, 
then,  and  of  justice,  let  every  honest  man  denounce 
those  resolutions  as  void  alike  in  the  forum  of  law  and 
in  the  forum  of  conscience ;  and,  admitting  Texas 
herself  to  be  in  the  Union,  yet,  when  application  is 
made  for  any  new  state  from  that  territory,  let  the 
question  be  decided  upon  the  merits  it  may  then 
possess. 

And  was  not  Mr.  Webster  of  the  same  opinion,  when, 
in  Faneuil  Hall,  in  November,  1845,  after  the  resolu 
tions  of  annexation  had  passed,  he  made  the  following 
emphatic,  but  unprophetic,  declaration  :  — 

"  It  is  thought,  it  is  an  idea  I  do  not  say  how  well  founded, 
that  there  may  yet  be  a  hope  for  resistance  to  the  consumma 
tion  of  the  act  of  annexation.  I  can  only  say  for  one,  that 


269 

if  it  should  fall  to  my  lot  tt>  have  a  vote  on  such  a  question, 
AND  I  VOTE  FOR  THE  ADMISSION  INTO  THIS  UNION  OF  ANY 
STATE  WITH  A  CONSTITUTION  WHICH  PROHIBITS  EVEN  THE 
LEGISLATURE  FROM  EVER  SETTING  THE  BONDMEN  FREE,  I 
SHALL  NEVER  SHOW  MY  HEAD  AGAIN,  DEPEND 
UPON  IT,  IN  FANEUIL  HALL." 

There  is  another  objection  to  any  future  claim  of 
'Texas  to  be  divided  into  states,  which  grows  out  of 
her  own  neglect  to  fulfil  the  terms  and  spirit  of  the 
agreement.  In  the  "  territory  north  of  the  Missouri 
compromise  line,  slavery  or  involuntary  servitude,  (ex 
cept  for  crime,)  shall  be  prohibited."  So  reads  the 
bond.  But  if  Texas  suffer  slavery  to  be  extended 
over  that  part  of  her  territory,  then,  when  it  becomes 
populous  enough  for  admission,  and  is  overspread  with 
slavery,  a  new  state  may  present  a  free  constitution,  be 
admitted  by  Congress,  and  before  the  slaves  have  time 
to  escape,  or  to  carry  the  question  of  freedom  before  the 
judicial  tribunals,  presto !  this  free  constitution  will 
be  changed  into  a  slave  constitution,  under  the  alleged 
right  of  a  state  to  decide  upon  its  own  domestic  insti 
tutions  ;  and  thus  the  word  of  promise,  which  was 
kept  to  the  ear,  will  be  broken  to  the  hope.  If  Texas 
meant  to  abide  by  the  resolutions  of  annexation,  and 
to  claim  any  thing  under  them,  it  was  her  clear  and  im 
perative  duty  forthwith  to  pass  a  law,  securing  freedom 
to  every  inhabitant  north  of  the  compromise  line.  In 
this  way  only  can  the  resolutions  be  executed  in  their 
true  spirit.  That  territory  is  now  in  the  condition 
of  an  egg.  It  is  undergoing  incubation.  From  it  a 
state  is  hereafter  to  be  hatched  ;  but  before  promising 
to  accept  the  chick,  it  would  be  agreeable  to  know 
whether  a  viper  had  impregnated  the  egg. 

There  is  a  still  further  objection,  of  whose  sound 
ness  I  have  no  doubt  ;  but  should  I  be  in  error  in  re 
gard  to  it,  the  mistake  will  not  invalidate  any  other 
argument.  The  parties  to  that  agreement  stipulated 
23* 


270 

on  the  ground  of  mutuality,  without  which  all  con 
tracts  are  void.  Some  states  were  to  be  admitted  to 
strengthen  the  hands  of  slavery,  and  some  of  freedom. 
A  line  of  demarcation  was  drawn.  Now,  on  inves 
tigation,  I  believe  it  will  most  conclusively  appear  that 
there  is  not  an  inch  of  Texan  territory  north  of  the 
stipulated  line.  It  all  belongs  to  New  Mexico,  as  much 
as  Nantucket  or  Berkshire  belongs  to  Massachusetts. 
It  was  a  mistake  on  the  part  of  the  contracting  parties ; 
if,  on  the  part  of  Texas,  it  was  not  something  worse 
than  a  mistake.  The  mutuality,  then,  fails.  The 
contract  is  niidum  pactum.  Texas  can  give  nothing 
for  what  she  was  to  receive  ;  and  is,  therefore,  entitled 
to  receive  nothing  but  what  she  has  got. 

In  regard  to  "  the  business  of  seeing  that  fugitives 
are  delivered  up,"  Mr.  Webster  says,  "  My  friend  at 
the  head  of  the  judiciary  committee,  [Mr.  BUTLER, 
of  South  Carolina,]  has  a  bill  on  the  subject  now  before 
the  Senate,  with  some  amendments  to  it,  which  I  pro 
pose  to  support,  with  all  its  provisions,  to  the  fullest 
extent." 

Here  is  Mr.  Butler's  bill,  with  Mr.  Mason's  amend 
ments  :  — 

A  BILL 

To  provide  for  the  more  effectual  execution  of  the  3d  clause  of  the  2d  sec 
tion  of  the  &th  article  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 

Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  United 
States  of  America  in  Congress  assembled,  That  when  a  person  held  to 
service  or  labor  in  any  state  or  territory  of  the  United  States,  under 
the  laws  of  such  state  or  territory,  shall  escape  into  any  other  of  the 
said  states  or  territories,  the  person  to  whom  such  service  or  labor 
may  be  due,  his  or  her  agent  or  attorney,  is  hereby  empowered  to 
seize  or  arrest  such  fugitive  from  service  or  labor,  and  take  him  or 
her  before  any  judge  of  the  circuit  or  district  courts  of  the  United 
States,  or  before  any  commissioner,  or  clerk  of  suc-h  courts,  or  mar 
shal  thereof,  or  any  postmaster  of  the  United  States,  or  collector  of 
the  customs  of  the  United  States,  residing  or  ben>  ^  >vithin  such  state 
wherein  such  sei/ure  or  arrest  shall  be  made,  and  upon  proof  to  the 
satisfaction  of  such  judge,  commissioner,  clerk,  marshal,  postmaster, 
or  collector,  as  the  case  may  be,  either  by  oral  testimony  or  affidavit 


271 

taken  before  and  certified  by  any  person  authorized  to  administer  an 
oath  under  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  or  of  any  state,  that  the 
person  so  seized  or  arrested,  under  the  laws  of  the  state  or  territory 
i'rom  which  he  or  she  fled,  owe  -  service  or  labor  to  the  person  claiming 
him  or  her,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  such  judge,  commissioner,  clerk, 
marshal,  po>tma>ter,  or  collector,  to  give  a  certilicate  thereof  to  such 
claimant,  his  or  her  agent  or  attorney,  which  ccrtilieate  shall  be  a 
sufficient  warrant  for  taking  and  removing  such  fugitive  from  service 
or  labor  to  the  state  or  territory  from  which  he  or  she  fled. 

SEC.  2.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  when  a  person  held  to  ser 
vice  or  labor,  as  mentioned  in  the  first  section  of  this  act,  shall  escape 
from  such  service  or  labor,  as  therein  mentioned,  the  person  to  Avhom 
such  service  or  labor  may  be  due,  his  or  her  agent  or  attorney,  may 
apply  to  any  one  of  the  officers  of  the  United  States  named  in  said 
section,  other  than  a  marshal  of  the  United  States,  for  a  warrant  to 
seize  and  arrest  such  fugitive,  and  upon  affidavit  being  made  before 
such  officer,  (each  of  whom  for  the  purposes  of  this  act  is  hereby 
authorized  to  administer  an  oath  or  affirmation,)  by  such  claimant,  his 
or  her  agent,  that  such  person  does,  under  the  laws  of  the  state  or 
territory  from  which  he  or  she  ficd,  owe  service  or  labor  to  such 
claimant,  it  shall  be,  and  is  hereby  made,  the  duty  of  such  officer,  to 
and  before  whom  such  application  and  affidavit  is  made,  to  issue  his 
warrant  to  any  marshal  of  any  of  the  courts  of  the  United  States  to 
seize  and  arrest  such  alleged  "fugitive,  and  to  bring  him  or  her  forth 
with,  or  on  a  day  to  be  named  in  such  warrant,  before  the  officer  is 
suing  such  warrant,  or  either  of  the  officers  mentioned  in  said  first 
section,  except  the  marshal  to  whom  the  said  warrant  is  directed, 
which  said  warrant  or  authority  the  said  marshal  is  hereby  authorized 
and  directed  in  all  things  to  obey. 

SECT.  3.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  upon  affidavit  made  as 
aforesaid  by  the  claimant  of  such  fugitive,  his  agent  or  attorney,  after 
such  certificate  has  been  issued,  that  he  has  reason  to  apprehend  that  such 
fugitive  will  be  rescued  by  force  from  his  or  their  possession,  before  he 
can  be  taken  beyond  the  limits  of  the  state  in  which  the  arrest  is 
made,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  officer  making  the  arrest  to  retain 
such  fugitive  in  his  custody,  and  to  remove  him  to  the  state  whence 
he  fled,  and  there  to  deliver  him  to  said  claimant,  his  agent  or  attor 
ney.  And  to  this  end,  the  officer  aforesaid  is  hereby  authorized  and 
required  to  employ  so  many  persons  as  he  may  deem  necessary  to 
overcome  such  force,  and  to  retain  them  in  his  service  so  long  as  cir 
cumstances  may  require.  The  said  officer  and  his  assistants,  while  so 
employed,  to  receive  the  same  compensation  and  to  be  allowed  the 
same  expenses  as  are  now  allowed  by  law  for  transportation  of  crimi 
nals,  to  be  certified  by  the  judge  of  the  district  within  which  the  ar 
rest  is  made,  and  paid  out  of  the  treasury  of  the  United  States  :  Pro- 
,  That,  before  such  charges  are  incurred,  the  claimant,  his  agent 
or  attorney,  shall  secure  to  said  officer  payment  of  the  same,  and  in 
case  no  actual  force  be  opposed,  then  they  shall  be  paid  by  such 
claimant,  his  agent  or  attorney. 

SEC.  4.  Ami  be  it  further  enacted,  When  a  warrant  shall  have  been 
issued  by  any  of  the  officers  under  the  second  section  of  this  act,  and 


272 

there  shall  be  no  marshal  or  deputy  marshal  within  ten  miles  of  the 
place  where  such  warrant  is  issued,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  officer 
issuing  the  same,  at  the  request  of  the  claimant,  his  agent  or  attorney, 
to  appoint  some  tit  and  discreet  person,  who  shall  be  willing  to  act  as 
marshal,  for  the  purpose  of  executing  said  warrant ;  and  such  person 
so  appointed  shall,  to  the  extent  of  executing  said  warrant,  and  de 
taining  and  transporting  the  fugitive  named  therein,  have  all  the 
power  and  authority,  and  be,  with  his  assistants,  entitled  to  the  same 
compensation  and  expenses  provided  in  this  act  in  cases  where  the 
services  arc  performed  by  the  marshals  of  the  courts. 

SEC.  5.  Andbe  it  further  enacted,  That  any  person  who  shall  knowingly 
and  willingly  obstruct  or  hinder  such  claimant,  his  agent  or  attorney, 
or  any  person  or  persons  assisting  him,  her,  or  them,  in  so  serving  or 
arresting  such  fugitive  from  service  or  labor,  or  shall  rescue  such 
fugitive  from  such  claimant,  his  agent  or  attorney,  when  so  arrested, 
pursuant  to  the  authority  herein  given  or  declared,  or  shall  aid,  abet, 
or  assist  such  person  so  owing  service  or  labor  to  escape  from  such 
claimant,  his  agent  or  attorney,  or  shall  harbor  or  conceal  such  per 
son,  after  notice  that  he  or  she  was  a  fugitive  from  labor,  as  aforesaid, 
shall,  for  either  of  the  said  offences,  forfeit  and  pay  the  sum  of  one 
thousand  dollars,  which  penalty  may  be  recovered  by  and  for  the 
benefit  of  such  claimant,  by  action  of  debt  in.  any  court  proper  to 
try  the  same,  saving,  moreover,  to  the  person  claiming  such  labor  or 
service,  his  right  of  action  for,  or  on  account  of,  the  said  injuries,  or 
either  of  them. 

SEC.  6.  And  be  it  further  enacted,  That  when  said  person  is  seized  or 
arrested,  under  and  by  virtue  of  the  said  warrant,  by  such  marshal, 
and  is  brought  before  either  of  the  officers  aforesaid,  other  than  the 
said  marshal,  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  such  officer  to  proceed  in  the  case 
of  such  person,  in  the  same  way  as  he  is  directed  and  authorized  to 
do  when  such  person  is  seized  and  arrested  by  the  person  claiming 
him,  or  by  his  or  her  agent  or  attorney,  and  is  brought  before  such 
officer  under  the  provisions  of  the  first  section  of  this  act. 

AMENDMENTS 

Intended  to  be  proposed  by  Mr.  Mason  to  the  bill  (Senate,  23)  to  provide 
for  the  more  effectual  execution  of  the  third  clause  of  the  second 
section  of  the  fourth  article  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

At  the  end  of  section  5,  add  : 

And  any  person  or  persons  offending  against  the  provisions  of  this 
section,  to  be  moreover  deemed  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor,  or  of  ob 
structing  the  due  execution  of  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  upon 
conviction  thereof  shall  be  fined  in  the  sum  of  one  thousand  dollars, 
one  half  whereof  shall  be  to  the  use  of  the  informer  ;  and  shall  also 
be  imprisoned  for  the  term  of  twelve  months. 

At  the  end  of  section  6,  add : 

And  in  no  trial  or  hearing  under  this  act  shall  the  testimony  of  such 
fugitive  be  admitted  in  evidence. 


It  will  be  observed  that  the  first  section  of  the  bill, 
after  constituting  the  judges  of  the  courts,  the  seven 
teen  thousand  postmasters,  the  collectors,  &c.,  tribu 
nals,  without  appeal,  for  the  delivery  of  any  body, 
who  is  sworn  by  any  body,  any  where,  to  be  a  fugitive 
slave,  refers  to  the  before-mentioned  officers  in  the 
words  "  residing  or  being  within  such  state  where  such 
seizure  or  arrest  is  made."  That  is,  the  judge,  post 
master,  collector,  &c.,  need  not  be  an  inhabitant  of  the 
state,  or  hold  his  office  in  the  state  where  the  seizure  is 
made  ;  but  it  is  sufficient  if  he  is  such  officer  any  where 
within  the  United  States.  Mr.  Butler  or  Mr.  Mason, 
therefore,  may  send  the  postmaster  of  his  own  city  or 
village  into  Massachusetts,  with  an  agent  or  attorney, 
who  brings  his  affidavit  from  South  Carolina  or  Vir 
ginia,  in  his  pocket ;  the  agent  or  attorney  may  arrest 
any  body,  at  any  time,  carry  him  before  his  accomplice, 
go  through  with  the  judicial  forms,  and  hurry  him  to 
the  south  ;  the  officer,  after  his  judicial  functions  are 
discharged,  turning  bailiff,  protecting  the  prey  and 
speeding  the  flight  ! 

Still  further ;  this  bill  derides  the  trial  by  jury,  se 
cured  by  the  constitution.  A  man  may  not  lose  a  horse 
without  a  right  to  this  trial  ;  but  he  may  his  freedom. 
Mr.  Webster  spoke  for  the  south  and  for  slavery  ;  not 
for  the  north  and  for  freedom,  when  he  abandoned  this 
right.  Such  an  abandonment,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  believe  of  one  who  has  earned  such  fame  as  defender 
of  the  constitution  ;  it  would  be  more  reasonable  to 
suppose  the  existence  of  some  strange  misapprehension, 
had  not  Mr.  Webster,  with  that  precision  and  strength 
which  are  so  peculiarly  his  own,  declared  his  deter 
mination  to  support  this  hideous  bill,  "  with  all  its 
provisions  to  the  fullest  extent,"  when,  at  the  same 
moment,  another  bill,  of  which  he  took  no  notice,  was 
pending  before  the  Senate,  introduced  by  Mr.  Seward, 
of  New  York,  securing  the  invaluable  privilege  of  a 
jury  trial. 


274 

I  disdain  to  avail  myself,  in  a  sober  argument,  of  the 
popular  sensitiveness  on  this  subject ;  and  I  acknowl 
edge  my  obligations  to  the  constitution  while  it  is  suf 
fered  to  last.  But  still  I  say,  that  the  man  who  can 
read  this  bill  without  having  his  blood  boil  in  his 
veins,  has  a  power  of  refrigeration  that  would  cool  the 
tropics. 

I  cannot  doubt  that  Mr.  Webster  will  yet  see  the 
necessity  of  reconsidering  his  position  on  this  whole 
question. 

Mr.  Webster  says,  "  It  is  my  firm  opinion,  this  day, 
that  within  the  last  twenty  years  as  much  money  has 
been  collected  and  paid  to  the  abolition  societies,  abo 
lition  presses,  and  abolition  lecturers,  as  would  pur 
chase  the  freedom  of  every  slave,  man,  woman,  and 
child,  in  the  State  of  Maryland,  and  send  them  all  to 
Liberia." 

The  total  number  of  slaves  in  Maryland,  according 
to  the  last  census,  amounted  to  89,405.  At  $250 
apiece,  —  which  is  but  about  half  the  value  commonly 
assigned  to  southern  slaves  by  southern  men,  —  this 
would  be  $22,373,750.  Allowing  $30  each  for  trans 
portation  to  Liberia,  without  any  provision  for  them 
after  their  arrival  there,  the  whole  sum  would  be 
$25,058,600, —  in  round  numbers,  twenty-five  millions 
of  dollars !  more  than  a  million  and  a  quarter  in  each 
year,  and  about  thirty-five  hundred  dollars  per  day.  I 
had  not  supposed  the  abolitionists  had  such  resources 
at  their  command  ! 

I  have  dwelt  thus  long  upon  Mr.  Webster's  speech, 
because  in  connection  with  his  two  votes  in  favor  of 
Mr.  Foote's  committee  of  compromise,  which  votes, 
had  they  been  the  other  way,  would  have  utterly  de 
feated  the  committee,  it  is  considered  to  have  done 
more  to  jeopard  the  great  cause  of  freedom  in  the  ter 
ritories,  than  any  other  event  of  this  disastrous  session. 
I  have  spoken  of  Mr.  Webster  by  name,  and,  I  trust,  in 


275 

none  but  respectful  terms.  I  might  have  introduced 
other  names,  or  examined  his  positions  without  men 
tioning  him.  I  have  taken  what  seemed  to  me  the 
more  manly  course  ;  and  if  these  views  should  ever  by 
chance  fall  under  his  eye,  I  believe  he  has  magnanim 
ity  enough  to  respect  me  the  more  for  the  frankness  I 
have  used.  If  I  am  wrong,  I  will  not  add  to  an  error 
of  judgment  the  meanness  of  a  clandestine  attack.  If 
I  am  right,  no  one  can  complain  ;  for  we  must  all  bow 
before  the  majesty  of  truth. 

I  have  now  noticed  the  principal  events  which  have 
taken  place  in  Congress,  and  which  have  led  to  what 
military  men  would  call  the  "demoralization"  of 
many  of  the  rank  and  file  of  its  members.  Some  re 
cent  movements  have  brought  vividly  to  mind  certain 
historical  recollections  in  regard  to  the  African  slave 
trade,  now  execrated  by  all  civilized  nations.  When 
the  immortal  Wilberforce  exposed  to  public  gaze  the 
secrets  of  that  horrid  traffic,  his  biographer  says,  "  The 
first  burst  of  generous  indignation  promised  nothing  less 
than  the  instant  abolition  of  the  trade,  but  mercantile 
jealousy  had  taken  the  alarm,  and  the  defenders  of  the 
West  India  system  found  themselves  strengthened  by 
the  independent  alliance  of  commercial  men.  "  — Life  of 
Wilberforce,  vol.  i.  p.  291. 

Again;  opposition  to  Wilberforce's  motion  "  arose 
amongst  the  Guinea  merchants ,"  —  "  reenforced,  how 
ever,  before  long  by  the  great  body  of  West  India 
planters."  —  Ibid. 

The  corporation  of  Liverpool  spent,  first  and  last, 
upwards  of  £10.000  in  defence  of  a  traffic  which  even 
the  gravity  and  calmness  of  judicial  decisions  have 
since  pronounced  "infernal." 

"  Besides  printing  works  in  defence  of  the  slave  trade 
and  remunerating  their  authors;  paying  the  expenses 
of  delegates  to  attend  in  London  and  watch  Mr.  Wil 
berforce's  proceedings,  they  pensioned  the  widows  of 


270 

Norris  and  Green,  and  voted  plate  to  Mr.  Penny,  for 
their  exertions  in  this  cause."  —  Ibid.  p.  345. 

It  is  said,  that  the  corporation  of  Liverpool,  at  this 
time,  "  believed  firmly  that  the  very  existence  of  the 
city  depended  upon  the  continuance  of  the  traffic." 
Look  at  Liverpool  now,  and  reflect  what  greater  re 
wards,  even  of  a  temporal  nature,  God  reserves  for  men 
that  abjure  dishonesty  and  crime. 

All  collateral  motives  were  brought  to  bear  upon  the 
subject,  just  as  they  are  at  the  present  time.  The 
Guinea  trade  was  defended  "as  a  nursery  for  seamen." 
—  Ibid.  p.  293. 

Even  as  Sate  as  1816,  the  same  class  of  men,  in  the 
same  country,  opposed  the  abolition  of  "  white  slavery  " 
in  Algiers,  from  the  same  base  motives  of  interest.  It 
was  thought  that  the  danger  of  navigating  the  Mediter 
ranean,  caused  by  the  Barbary  corsairs,  was  advan 
tageous  to  British  commerce  ;  because  it  might  deter 
the  merchant  ships  of  other  nations  from  visiting  it. 
After  Lord  Exmouth  had  compelled  the  Algerines  to 
liberate  their  European  slaves,  he  proceeded  against 
Tunis  and  Tripoli.  In  giving  an  account  of  what  he 
had  done,  he  defends  his  conduct  "  upon  general  prin 
ciples,"  but  adds,  "  as  applying  to  our  own  country, 
[Great  Britain,]  it  may  not  be  borne  out,  the  old  mer 
cantile  interest  being  against  it." — Osier's  Life  of 
Exmouth,  p.  303. 

So  after  Admiral  Blake,  in  the  time  of  Cromwell, 
had  attacked  Tunis,  he  says,  in  his  despatch  to  Secre 
tary  Thurloe,  "  And  now  seeing  it  hath  pleased  God 
soe  signally  to  justify  us  herein,  I  hope  his  highness 
will  not  be  offended  at  it.  nor  any  who  regard  duly  the 
honor  of  the  nation,  although  I  expect  to  have  the 
clamors  of  INTERESTED  MEN." — Thurloe's  State  Pa 
pers,  vol.  ii.  p.  390. 

And  is  commerce,  the  daughter  of  freedom,  thus  for 
ever  to  lift  her  parricidal  hand  against  the  parent  that 


bore  her?  Are  rich  men  forever  to  use  their  "  thirty 
pieces  of  silver,"  or  their  "ten  thousand  pounds  ster 
ling,"  or  their  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars,  to  re 
ward  the  Judases  for  betraying  their  Savior  ?  Viewed 
by  the  light  of  our  increased  knowledge,  and  by  our 
more  elevated  standard  of  duty,  the  extension  of 
slavery  into  California  or  New  Mexico,  at  the  present 
time,  or  even  the  sufferance  of  it  there,  is  a  vastly 
greater  crime  than  was  the  African  slave  trade  itself,  in 
the  last  century  ;  and  I  would  rather  meet  the  doom 
of  posterity,  or  of  heaven,  for  being  engaged  in  the 
truliic  then,  than  for  being  accessory  to  its  propagation 
now. 

Let  those  who  aid,  abet,  or  connive  at  slavery  ex 
tension  now,  as  they  read  the  damning  sentence  which 
history  has  awarded  against  the  actors,  abettors,  and 
cannivers  of  the  African  trade,  but  change  the  names, 
and  they  will  be  reading  of  themselves.  Should  our 
new  territories  be  hereafter  filled  with  groaning  bond 
men,  should  they  become  an  American  Egypt,  tyran 
nized  over  by  ten  thousand  Pharaohs,  it  will  be  no 
defence  for  those  who  permitted  it.  to  say,  "  We  hoped, 
we  supposed,  we  trusted,  that  slavery  could  not  go 
there  ;  "  Nemesis,  as  she  plies  "her  scorpion  lash,  will 
reply,  "  You  might  have  made  it  certain" 

On  this  great  question  of  freedom  or  slavery,  I  have 
observed  with  grief,  nay,  with  anguish,  that  we,  at  the 
north,  break  up  into  hostile  parties,  hurl  criminations 
and  recriminations  to  and  fro,  and  expend  that  strength 
for  the  ruin  of  each  other,  which  should  be  directed 
against  the  enemies  of  liberty  ;  while,  at  the  south, 
whenever  slavery  is  in  jeopardy,  all  party  lines  are 
obliterated,  dissensions  are  healed,  enemies  become 
friends,  and  all  are  found  in  a  solid  column,  with  an 
unbroken  front.  Are  the  children  of  darkness  to  be 
forever  so  much  wiser  than  the  children  of  light  ?  In 
the  recent  choice  of  delegates  for  the  Nashville  con- 
24 


278 

vention,  I  have  not  seen  a  single  instance  where  Whig 
and  Democrat  have  not  been  chosen  as  though  they 
were  Siamese  twins,  and  must  go  together.  But  here 
it  often  happens,  that  as  soon  as  one  party  is  known  to 
be  in  favor  of  one  man,  this  preference  alone  is  deemed 
a  sufficient  reason  why  another  party  should  oppose  him. 
Why  can  we  not  combine  for  the  sacred  cause  of  free 
dom,  as  they  combine  for  slavery?  No  thought  or  de 
sire  is  further  from  my  mind  than  that  of  interfering 
with  any  man's  right  of  suffrage ;  but  if,  (which  is  by 
no  means  impossible,  nor  perhaps  improbable,)  the  fate 
of  New  Mexico  should  be  decided  by  one  vote,  and  my 
vote  should  have  been  the  cause  of  a  vacancy  in  any 
Congressional  district  that  might  have  sent  a  friend  to 
freedom,  I  should  say,  with  Cain,  "  My  punishment  is 
greater  than  I  can  bear." 

On  the  subject  of  the  present  alienation  and  discord 
between  the  north  and  the  south,  I  wish  to  say  that  I 
have  as  strong  a  desire  for  reconciliation  and  amity  as 
any  one  can  have.  There  is  no  pecuniary  sacrifice 
within  the  limits  of  the  constitution,  which  I  would 
not  willingly  make  for  so  desirable  an  object.  Public 
revenues  I  would  appropriate,  private  taxation  I  would 
endure,  to  relieve  this  otherwise  thrice-glorious  repub 
lic  from  the  calamity  and  the  wrong  of  slavery.  I 
would  not  only  resist  the  devil,  but  if  he  will  flee  from 
me,  I  will  build  a  bridge  of  gold  to  facilitate  his  escape. 
I  mention  this  to  prove  that  it  is  not  the  value,  in, 
money,  of  territorial  freedom,  for  which  I  contend,  but 
its  value  in  character,  in  justice,  in  human  happiness. 
While  I  utterly  deny  the  claim  set  up  by  the  south, 
yet  I  would  gladly  consent  that  my  southern  fellow- 
citizens  should  go  to  the  territories  and  carry  there 
every  kind  of  property  which  I  can  carry  ;  I  would 
then  give  to  the  Southern  States  their  full  share 
of  all  the  income  ever  to  be  derived  from  the  sales  of 
the  public  lands,  or  the  leasing  of  the  public  mines  ; 


279 

and  whatever,  after  this  deduction,  was  left  in  the  pub 
lic  treasury,  should  he  appropriated  for  the  whole  na 
tion,  as  has  been  the  practice  heretofore.  That  is,  in 
consideration  of  excluding  slavery  from  the  territories, 
I  would  give  the  south  a  double  share,  or  even  a  three 
fold  share,  of  all  the  income  that  may  ever  be  derived 
from  them.  Pecuniary  surrenders  I  would  gladly  make 
for  the  sake  of  peace,  but  not  for  peace  itself  would  I 
surrender  liberty. 

It  would  be  to  suppose  our  merchants  and  manufac 
turers  void  of  common  foresight,  could  they  believe 
that  conc\vSfji°n  now  will  bring  security  hereafter.  By 
yielding  trie  moral  question,  they  jeopard  their  pecu 
niary  interests.  Should  the  south  succeed  in  their 
present  attempt  upon  the  territories,  they  will  impa 
tiently  await  the  retirement  of  General  Taylor  from  the 
executive  chair,  to  add  the  "  State  of  Cuba,"  with  its 
500,000  slaves,  its  ignorance  and  its  demoralization,  to 
their  roll  of  triumph.  California  will  be  a  free-trade 
state,  by  the  most  certain  of  all  biases.  They  will 
have  nothing  to  sell  but  gold  ;  they  will  have  every 
thing  to  buy,  —  cradles  and  coffins,  and  all  between. 
If  New  Mexico  is  slave,  it  will  also  be  free  trade  ;  and 
Cuba  as  certainly  as  either,  — though  in  that  island  fa 
cilities  for  smuggling  will  reduce  the  difference  between 
tariff  and  free  trade  to  nothing.  A  surrender,  therefore, 
by  our  northern  business  men,  will  be  most  disastrous 
to  the  very  business  that  tempts  them  to  surrender. 
Will  they  take  no  warning  from  the  fact  that  their 
apathy  in  regard  to  Texas  repealed  the  tariff  of  1842  ? 
This  is  a  low  motive,  I  admit  ;  but  it  may  be  set  as  a 
back-fire  to  the  motive  by  which  some  of  them  appear 
to  be  influenced.  There  was  no  need,  not  a  shadow 
of  need,  of  perilling  any  principle,  nor  any  interest. 
Had  the  north  stood  firm,  had  they  been  true  to  the 
great  principles  they  have  so  often  and  so  solemnly 
proclaimed,  the  waves  of  southern  violence  would  have 


280 

struck  harmless  at  their  feet.  He  is  not  learned  in  the 
weather  who  does  not  know  that  storms  from  the  south, 
though  violent,  are  short.  We  are  assailed  now  be 
cause  we  have  yielded  before.  The  compromise  of 
1820  begat  the  nullification  of  1832  ;  the  compromise 
of  1832  inspired  the  mad  exploit  of  compassing  Texas, 
which  our  greater  madness  made  sane.  The  moral 
paralysis  which  failed  to  oppose  the  Mexican  war,  has 
given  us  the  territories.  If  the  territories  are  now  sur 
rendered,  we  shall  have  Cuba,  and  an  indefinite  career 
of  conquest  and  of  slavery  will  be  opened  on  our  south 
western  border.  Every  new  concess'CUL  transfers 
strength  from  our  side  to  the  side  of  our  opponents  ; 
and  if  we  cannot  arrest  our  own  course  when  we  are 
just  entering  the  rapids,  how  can  we  arrest  it  when  we 
come  near  the  verge  of  the  cataract  ?  The  south  may 
rule  the  Union,  but  they  cannot  divide  it.  Their 
whole  Atlantic  seaboard  is  open  to  attack,  and  power 
less  for  defence  ;  and  the  Mississippi  River  may  as  easily 
be  divided  physically  as  politically  into  independent 
portions.  With  these  advantages,  let  us  never  aggress 
upon  their  rights,  but  let  us  maintain  our  own. 

Fellow-citizens,  I  would  gladly  relieve  the  darkness 
of  this  picture  by  some  gleams  of  light.  There  are 
two  hopes  which,  as  yet,  are  not  wholly  extinguished 
in  my  mind.  Beyond  all  question,  a  compromise  bill 
will  be  reported  by  the  committee  of  thirteen,  in  which 
free  California  will  be  made  to  carry  as  great  a  burden 
of  slavery  as  she  can  bear.  It  is  still  possible  that  the 
House  will  treat,  as  it  deserves,  this  adulterous  union. 
A  single  vote  may  turn  the  scale,  and  Massachusetts 
may  give  that  vote.  Not  improbably,  too,  the  fate  of 
the  bill  may  depend  upon  the  earnestness  and  decision 
with  which  northern  constituencies  make  their  senti 
ments  known  to  their  representatives,  whether  by  pe 
titions,  by  private  letters,  or  by  public  resolutions.  Let 
every  lover  of  freedom  do  his  best  and  his  most. 


28 1 

Should  the  north  fail,  I  have  still  one  hope  more. 
It  is,  that  New  Mexico  will  do  for  herself  what  we 
shall  have  basely  failed  to  do  for  her.  If  both  these 
hopes  fail,  our  country  is  doomed  to  run  its  unobstruct 
ed  career  of  conquest,  of  despotism,  and  of  infamy. 

I  have  now,  my  fellow-citizens,  given  you  my 
"Views  and  Opinions"  on  the  present  crisis  in  our 
public  affairs.  Had  I  regarded  my  own  feelings,  I 
should  have  spoken  less  at  length  ;  but  the  subject  has 
commanded  me.  I  trust  I  have  spoken  respectfully 
towards  those  from  whom  I  dissent,  while  speaking 
my  own  sentiments  justly  and  truly.  I  have  used  no 
asperity  ;  for  all  my  emotions  have  been  of  grief,  and  not 
of  anger.  My  words  have  been  cool  as  the  telegraphic 
wires,  while  my  feelings  have  been  like  the  lightning 
that  runs  through  them.  The  idea  that  Massachusetts 
should  contribute  or  consent  to  the  extension  of  human 
slavery  !  —  is  it  not  enough,  not  merely  to  arouse  the 
living  from  their  torpor,  but  the  dead  from  their  graves  ! 
Were  I  to  help  this,  nay,  did  I  not  oppose  it  with  all 
the  powers  and  faculties  which  God  has  given  me,  I 
should  see  myriads  of  agonized  faces  glaring  out  upon 
me  from  the  future,  more  terrible  than  Duncan's  at 
Macbeth;  arid  I  would  rather  feel  an  assassin's  poniard 
in  my  breast  than  forever  hereafter  to  see  "  the  air- 
drawn  dagger"  of  a  guilty  memory.  In  Massachu 
setts,  the  great  drama  of  the  revolution  began.  Some 
of  its  heroes  yet  survive  amongst  us.  At  Lexington, 
at  Concord,  and  on  Bunker  Hill,  the  grass  still  grows 
greener  where  the  soil  was  fattened  with  the  blood  of 
our  fathers.  If,  in  the  providence  of  God,  we  must 
be  vanquished  in  this  contest,  let  it  be  by  force  of  the 
overmastering  and  inscrutable  powers  above  us,  and 
not  by  our  own  base  desertion. 

I  am,  gentlemen,  your  much  honored,  obliged,  and 
obedient  servant, 

HORACE  MANN. 

24  * 


'282 


LETTER   II. 


To  THE  EDITORS  OF  THE  BOSTON  ATLAS  ; 

GENTLEMEN  ;  Your  semi-weekly  of  the  1st  instant 
contains  a  letter  of  the  Hon.  Daniel  Webster,  to  certain 
citizens  of  New  bury  port,  in  which  he  has  been  pleased 
to  refer  to  me,  and  particularly  to  a  passage  in  the  let 
ter  which  I  addressed  to  a  portion  of  my  constituents, 
on  the  3d  of  May  last,  [the  preceding  Letter.]  His 
reference  to  me  is  of  so  extraordinary  a  character,  both 
as  to  manner  and  matter,  that  I  wish  to  reply.  To 
prevent  all  chance  of  mistake,  I  quote  the  following 
passages : — 

"  But,  at  the  same  time,  nothing  is  more  false  than  that 
such  jury  trial  is  demanded  in  cases  of  this  kind  by  the  con 
stitution,  either  in  its  letter  or  in  its  spirit.  The  constitution 
declares  that  in  all  criminal  prosecutions  there  shall  be  a 
trial  by  jury.  The  claiming  of  a  fugitive  slave  is  not  a  crim 
inal  prosecution. 

"  The  constitution  also  declares  that  in  suits  at  common  law 
the  trial  by  jury  shall  be  preserved  ;  the  reclaiming  of  a  fugi 
tive  slave  is  not  a  suit  at  the  common  law  ;  and  there  is  no 
other  clause  or  sentence  in  the  constitution  having  the  least 
bearing  on  the  subject. 

"  I  have  seen  a  publication  by  Mr.  Horace  Mann,  a  mem 
ber  of  Congress  from  Massachusetts,  in  which  I  find  this  sen 
tence.  Speaking  of  the  hill  before  the  Senate,  he  says: 
4  This  bill  derides  the  trial  by  jury. secured  by  the  constitution. 
A  man  may  not  lose  his  horse  without  a  right  to  this  trial,  but 
he  may  lose  his  freedom.  Mr.  Webster  speaks  for  the  south 
and  for  slavery,  not  for  the  north  and. for  freedom,  when  he 
abandons  this  right.1  This  personal  vituperation  does  not 


283 

annoy  me,  but  I  lament  to  see  a  public  man  of  Massachusetts 
so  crude;  and  confused  in  his  le^al  apprehensions,  and  so  little 
acquainted  with  the  constitution  of  his  country,  as  these  opin 
ions  evince  Mr.  Mann  to  be.  His  citation  of  a  supposed 
case,  as  in  point,  if  it  have  any  analogy  to  the  matter,  would 
prove  that,  if  Mr.  Mann's  horse  stray  into  his  neighbor's  field, 
lie  cannot,  lead  him  back  without  a  previous  trial  by  jury  to 
ascertain  the  ri^lit.  Truly,  if  what  Mr.  Mann  says  of  the 
provisions  of  the  constitution  in  this  publication  be  a  test  of 
liis  accuracy  in  the  understanding  of  that  instrument,  he  would 
do  well  not  to  seek  to  protect  his  peculiar  notions  under  its 
sanction,  but  to  appeal  at  once,  as  others  do,  to  that  higher 
authority  which  sits  enthroned  above  the  constitution  and 
above  the  law." 

I  must  deny  this  charge  of  "  personal  vitupera 
tion  •  "  nothing  was  further  from  my  thoughts ;  and 
I  regret  that  Mr.  Webster,  while  disclaiming  "  an 
noyance  "  at  what  I  said,  should  hetray  it.  I  believe 
every  part  of  my  "Letter"  to  be  within  the  bounds 
of  courteous  and  respectful  discussion.  There  is  noth 
ing  in  it  which  might  not  pass  between  gentlemen, 
without  interrupting  relations  of  civility  or  friendship. 
Though  full  of  regret  at  his  novel  position,  and  of  dis 
sent  from  his  unwonted  doctrines,  yet  it  abounds  in 
proofs  of  deference  to  himself.  I  must  now,  however, 
be  permitted  to  add  that  the  highest  eminence  becomes 
unenviable  when  it  breeds  intolerance  of  dissent,  or 
bars  out  the  humblest  man  from  a  free  expression  of 
opinion. 

Mr.  Webster  "  laments  to  see  a  public  man  of  Mas 
sachusetts  so  crude  and  confused  in  his  legal  apprehen 
sions,  and  so  little  acquainted  with  the  constitution  of 
his  country,  as  these  opinions  evince  Mr.  Mann  to  be." 
Yet  he  points  out  no  error  of  opinion.  He  specifies 
nothing  as  unsound.  Judgment  and  condemnation  alone 
appear.  He  seems  to  have  taken  it  for  granted  that  he 
had  only  to  say  I  was  guilty,  and  then  proceed  to  punish. 
I  protest  against  and  impugn  this  method  of  proceeding, 


284 

by  any  man,  however  high,  against  any  man,  however 
humble. 

When  Mr.  Webster  penned  his  "  lamentations  "  over 
my  crudeness,  confusion,  and  ignorance,  he  doubtless 
meant  to  deal  me  a  mortal  blow.  The  blow  was  cer 
tainly  heavy  :  but  the  question  still  remains,  whether 
it  hit.  Polyphemus  struck  hard  blows,  but  his  blind 
ness  left  the  objects  of  his  passions  unharmed. 

But  wherein  do  those  erroneous  "  opinions  "  consist, 
which  Mr.  Webster  does  not  deign  to  specify,  but  as 
sumes  to  condemn  ?  Fortunately,  in  writing  the  sen 
tence  which  he  quotes  for  animadversion,  I  followed 
the  precise  meaning  of  Judge  Story,  as  laid  down  in 
his  Commentaries  ;  and  in  regard  to  the  only  point 
which  is  open  to  a  question,  /  took  the  exact  words  of 
that  great  jurist.  He  speaks  of  "  the  right  of  a  trial 
by  jury,  in  civil  cases,"  as  an  existing  right  before  the 
seventh  article  of  amendment  to  the  constitution, 
which  preserves  this  right  "in  suits  at  common  law," 
had  been  adopted.  (3  Comm.,  628.)  Instead  of  tran 
scribing  Judge  Story's  words.  "  in  civil  cases,"  which 
present  no  distinct  image  to  common  minds,  I  supposed 
the  every-day  case  of  litigation  respecting  a  horse, 
which  is  a  "  civil  case  ;  "  and  this  difference  of  form 
is  the  only  difference  between  my  language  and  that 
of  the  learned  judge.  I  can  wish  Mr.  Webster  no 
more  fitting  retribution,  after  reposing  from  this  ill- 
ternpered  attack  upon  me,  than  to  awake  and  find  that 
it  was  Judge  Story  whom  he  had  been  maligning. 

Does  not  the  authority  of  Judge  Blackstone  also 
support  my  position  ?  He  says,  — 

"  Recapture  or  reprisal  is  another  species  of  remedy,  by 
the  mere  act  of  the  party  injured.  .  .  .  But  as  the  pub 
lic  peace  is  a  superior  consideration  to  any  one  man's  private 
property  ;  and  as,  if  individuals  were  once  allowed  to  use 
private  force  as  a  remedy  for  private  injuries,  all  social  jus 
tice  must  cease,  the  strong  would  give  law  to  the  weak,  and 


every  man  would  revert  to  a  state  of  nature  ;  for  these  rea 
sons,  it  is  provided  that  this  natural  right  of  recaption  shull 
never  be  exerted,  where  such  exertion  must  occasion  strife 
and  bodily  contention,  or  endanger  the  peace  of  society.  If, 
for  instance,  my  horse  is  taken  away,  and  I  find  him  in  a 
common,  a  fair,  or  a  public  inn,  I  may  lawfully  seize  him  to 
my  own  use ;  but  I  cannot  justify  breaking  open  a  private 
stable,  or  entering  on  the  grounds  of  a  third  person,  to  take 
him,  should  he  be  feloniously  stolen;  but  must,  have  recourse 
to  an  action  at  law"  —  Co  mm.  4,  5. 

But  the  opinion  expressed  by  me  on  this  point  does 
not  need  the  authority  of  any  name  to  support  it ;  and 
the  illustration  which  I  gave  is  not  only  intelligible  to 
every  sensible  man,  but  is  also  apposite.  I  said  "  a  m;m 
may  not  lose  his  horse,  [i.  e.  his  property  in  a  horse,] 
without  a  right  to  this  trial."  Mr.  Webster's  comment 
is,  that  this  case,  "  if  it  have  any  analogy  to  the  mat 
ter."  means,  that  if  a  man's  horse  "  stray  into  his  neigh 
bor's  field,  he  cannot  lead  him  back  without  a  previous 
trial  by  jury  to  ascertain  the  right."  Was  ever  the 
plain  meaning  of  a  sentence  more  exactly  changed 
about,  end  for  end  ?  Mr.  Webster  may  pitch  somer 
sets  with  his  own  doctrines,  but  he  has  no  right  to 
pitch  them  with  mine.  I  said  a  man  may  not  lose  his 
horse,  or  his  property  in  a  horse,  without  a  right  to  the 
trial  by  jury.  He  says  I  said,  a  man  cannot  find  or 
retake  a  lost  horse,  without  a  previous  trial  !  Dulce 
est  desipere  in  loco.  Or,  it  is  pleasant  to  see  a  grave 
senator  play  upon  words;  —  though  there  should  be 
some  wit  to  redeem  it  from  puerility. 

But  the  childishness  of  this  criticism  is  not  its  worst 
feature.  What  is  the  great  truth  which  Mr.  Webster 
and  his  apologists  attempt  here  to  ridicule  ?  It  is 
this :  While  every  man  amongst  us,  in  regard  to  any 
piece  of  property  worth  more  than  twenty  dollars,  of 
which  violence  or  fraud  may  attempt  to  despoil  him, 
has  a  right  to  a  trial  by  jury  ;  yet  a  man's  freedom, 


286 

and  that  of  his  posterity  forever,  may  be  wrested  from 
him,  as  our  law  now  stands,  without  such  a  trial. 
Does  not  this  hold  a  man's  freedom  to  be  of  less  value 
than  twenty  dollars  ?  If  two  adverse  claimants  con 
test  title  to  an  alleged  slave,  whose  market  value  is 
more  than  this  sum,  each  is  entitled  to  a  jury  to  try 
the  fact  of  ownership.  But  if  the  alleged  slave  de 
clares,  here,  in  Massachusetts,  that  he  owns  himself,  he 
is  debarred  from  this  right.  And  this  truth,  or  a  com 
mon  illustration  of  it,  Mr.  Webster  and  his  apologists 
think  a  suitable  topic  for  sneers  or  pleasantry  !  A 
French  proverb  says,  that  for  a  man  to  kill  his  mother 
is  not  in  good  taste.  I  trust  the  moral  and  religious 
people  of  Massachusetts  have  too  much  good  taste  to 
relish  jokes  on  such  a  theme. 

Again  ;  I  said  that  Mr.  Butler's  bill  "  derides  "  the 
trial  by  jury.  By  that  bill  every  commissioner  and 
clerk  of  a  United  States  court,  every  marshal  and  col 
lector  of  the  customs,  and  the  seventeen  thousand 
postmasters  of  the  United  States,  are  severally  invested 
with  jurisdiction  and  authority  in  all  parts  of  the 
United  States,  to  deliver  any  man,  woman,  or  child 
in  the  United  States,  into  custody,  as  a  slave,  on  the 
strength  of  an  ex  partc  affidavit,  made  any  where  in 
the  United  States.  This  affidavit  may  have  been 
made  a  thousand  miles  off,  by  no  one  knows  whom, 
and  certified  to  by  a  person  who  never  saw  or  heard 
of  the  individual  named  in  it.  A  forged  affidavit,  or 
a  fictitious  affidavit,  would  often  answer  the  purpose  as 
well ;  for  how  difficult,  and  in  many  cases,  how  impossi 
ble,  to  prove  its  spuriousness.  Did  oppression  ever  before 
conceive  such  a  tribunal,  so  countless  in  numbers,  so 
ample  in  jurisdiction,  so  terrible  in  power?  Had  a 
bill  similar  to  this  been  proposed  in  the  British  Parlia 
ment,  from  1763  to  1776,  what  would  oar  fathers  have 
said  of  it  ?  Yet  this  bill,  with  some  kindred  amend 
ments,  heightening  its  features  of  atrocity,  Mr.  Webster 


287 

promised  "  to  support,  with  all  its  provisions,  to  the 
fullest  extent." 

What  aggravates  the  wrong,  is,  that  the  cruelties  of 
the  measure  will  fall  upon  the  poor,  the  helpless,  the 
ignorant,  the  unfriended.  The  hill  would  have  heen 
far  less  disgraceful,  had  its  provisions  borne  upon  the 
men  who  should  pass  it  ;  because,  in  such  case,  there 
would  have  been  a  touch  of  equality.  Now,  if  this 
bill  does  not  "deride"  all  guaranties  for  the  protection 
of  human  liberty,  it  is  only  because  my  word  of 
reprobation  is  too  weak.  It  is  only  because  one  needs 
"to  tear  a  leaf  from  the  curse-book  of  Pandemonium  " 
in  order  to  describe  it  by  fitting  epithets. 

Another  remarkable  feature  of  Mr.  Butler's  bill  is, 
that  it  provides  no  penally  whatever  for  any  one  who 
shall  abuse,  or  fraudulently  use,  the  dangerous  author 
ity  which  it  gives.  It  furnishes  endless  temptations 
and  facilities  for  committing  wrong  :  it  imposes  no 
restraints  ;  it  warns  by  no  threats  of  retribution. 

Mr.  Webster  calls  me  to  account  for  some  unspecified 
erroneous  "  opinion,"  expressed  in  relation  to  this  bill. 
Can  any  opinion  be  so  false  to  the  constitution,  as  this 
bill  to  humanity  ?  I  deprecate  error  of  all  sorts  ;  but 
hold  it  to  be  more  venial  to  err  in  judgment  than  in 
heart. 

I  said  that  in  promising  to  support  Mr.  Butler's  bill, 
"  with  all  its  provisions,  to  the  fullest  extent,"  Mr. 
Webster  ".abandoned  "  the  right  to  a  trial  by  jury.  I 
spoke  of  him  as  a  senator,'  as  one  who,  with  his  co- 
legislators,  was  bound,  in  fulfilment  of  his  constitution 
al  duty,  to  secure  this  form  of  trial  to  the  alleged  slave, 
or  to  a  known  freeman  seized  as  a  slave.  Mr.  Se ward's 
bill,  providing  for  the  trial  by  jury,  in  such  cases,  was 
before  him.  He  took  no  notice  of  it.  He  passed  by 
"  on  the  other  side,"  while  he  bestowed  his  best  enco 
mium  on  Mr.  Butler's  bill,  by  promising  to  support  it. 
Wras  not  this  an  "  abandonment,"  under  any  of  the 
synonymes  given  in  the  dictionary  ? 


288 

Mr.  Webster  advises  me,  in  a  certain  contingency, 
"  to  appeal  to  that  higher  authority  which  sits  en 
throned  above  the  constitution  and  above  the  law."  I 
take  no  exception  to  this  counsel,  because  of  its  offi- 
ciousness,  but  would  thank  him  for  it.  My  ideas  of 
duty  require  me  to  seek  anxiously  for  the  true  inter 
pretation  of  the  constitution,  and  then  to  abide  by  it, 
unswayed  by  hopes  or  fears.  If  the  constitution 
requires  me  to  do  any  thing  which  my  sense  of  duty 
forbids,  I  shall  save  my  conscience  by  resigning  my 
office.  I  am  free,  however,  to  say,  that  if,  in  the  dis 
charge  of  my  political  duties,  I  should  transfer  my 
allegiance  to  any  other  power,  I  should  adopt  Mr. 
Webster's  ironical  advice,  and  go  to  the  power  "  which 
sits  enthroned  above,"  rather  than  descend  to  that 
opposite  realm,  whence  the  bill  he  so  cordially  prom 
ised  to  support  must  have  emerged. 

I  wish,  however,  to  remark,  that  though  I  acknowl 
edge  the  constitution  to  be  my  guide  while  under  oath 
to  support  it,  yet  I  do  not  relish  this  fling  either  at  the 
powers  above  us,  or  at  those  who  reverence  them.  I 
hold  it  to  be  not  only  proper,  but  proof  of  sound  moral 
and  religious  feeling,  to  look  to  the  perfect  law  of  God 
for  light  to  enable  us  more  justly  to  interpret  the 
imperfect  laws  of  man.  Especially,  when  we  are 
proposing  to  make  or  amend  a  law,  ought  we  to  take 
our  gauge  of  purpose  and  of  action  from  the  highest 
standard. 

Noy,  that  Solomon  of  the  law,  thought  it  not  im 
proper  to  say,  "  The  inferior  law  must  give  place  to 
the  superior;  man's  laws  to  God's  laws."  —  Maxims, 
pp.  6,  7. 

"  The  law  of  Nature,"  says  Blackstone,  u  being  co 
eval  with  mankind,  and  dictated  by  God  himself,  is, 
of  course,  superior  in  obligation  to  any  other.  It  is 
binding  all  over  the  globe  ;  in  all  countries,  at  all  times. 
No  human  laws  have  any  validity,  if  contrary  to  this; 


289 

and  such  of  them  as  are  valid,  derive  all  their  force 
and  all  their  authority,  mediately  or  immediately,  from 
this  original."  —  1  Com.  41. 

Fortescue,  the  Chancellor  of  Henry  VI.,  in  his  De 
Laudibus  Leguin  Anglice,  cap.  42,  has  the  following 
passage,  the  consideration  of  which,  in  requital  for 
Mr.  Webster's  advice  to  me,  I  respectfully  commend 
to  him  :  — 

"  That  must  necessarily  be  adjudged  a  cruel  law,  which 
augments  slavery,  and  diminishes  liberty.  For  human 
nature  implores,  without  ceasing,  for  liberty.  Slavery  is 
introduced  by  man,  and  through  his  vice.  But  liberty  is  the 
gift  of  God  to  man.  Wherefore,  when  torn  from  a  man,  it 
ever  yearns  to  return  ;  and  it  is  the  same  with  every  thing 
when  deprived  of  its  natural  liberty.  On  this  account,  that 
man  is  to  be  adjudged  cruel,  who  does  not  favor  liberty.  By 
these  considerations  the  laws  of  England,  in  every  case, 
give  favor  to  liberty." 

Having  defended  rny  own  propositions,  I  shall  now 
take  the  liberty  to  examine  some  of  Mr.  Webster's  ; 
and,  in  so  doing,  I  shall  examine  the  constitutional 
provisions  for  trial  by  jury,  and  fortify  my  opinion  by 
historical  references.  I  shall  consider, 

I.  Where  Congress  has  power  to  provide  for  such 
trial. 

II.  Where  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  do  so. 

Mr.  Webster  says  "the  constitution  declares,  that 
in  all  criminal  prosecutions,  there  shall  be  a  trial  by 
jury  ;  "  and  that  "  in  suits  at  common  law  the  trial 
by  jury  shall  be  preserved."  He  then  adds,  "  There 
is  no  other  clause  or  sentence  in  the  constitution  hav 
ing  the  least  bearing  upon  the  subject."  Mark  his 
words  :  "  There  is  no  other  clause  or  sentence  in  the 
constitution,  having  the  least  bearing"  on  the  subject." 
This  I  deny. 

Here  Mr.  Webster  virtually  declares  that,  but  for  the 
above-named  two  provisions,  the  right  of  the  trial  by 
25 


290 

jury  would  not  have  been  secured  to  us  by  the  consti 
tution  in  any  case.  Of  course,  in  the  absence  of  these 
provisions,  Congress  would  have  been  under  no  obli 
gation,  nor  would  it,  indeed,  have  had  any  power,  to 
provide  by  law  for  such  trials. 

Were  I  to  say  that  this  assertion  borders  on  the 
incredible,  one  might  well  ask,  Which  side  of  the  line 
does  it  lie  ? 

The  provision  for  a  trial  by  jury,  in  criminal  prose 
cutions,  is  in  the  third  clause  of  the  second  section  of 
the  third  article,  and  is  repeated,  and  somewhat  en 
larged,  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  articles  of  amendment. 

But  the  provision  for  trial  by  jury,  in  suits  at  com 
mon  law,  is  in  the  seventh  article  of  amendment  j  and 
neither  this  provision,  nor  any  semblance  of  it,  is  to 
be  found,  in  express  words,  in  any  part  of  the  consti 
tution  as  it  came  from  the  hands  of  its  framers,  and 
was  adopted  by  the  states. 

According  to  Mr.  Webster,  then,  Congress  was  under 
no  obligation,  and  had  no  power,  to  make  a  law  provid 
ing  for  trial  by  jury,  except  in  criminal  prosecutions, 
until  after  the  seventh  article  of  amendment  had  been 
ratified  ;  for  if  they  had  any  such  power,  or  were  un 
der  any  such  obligation,  it  must  be  by  virtue  of  some 
clause  or  sentence  in  the  constitution,  having  a  "  bear 
ing  upon  the  subject" 

Now,  the  first  session  of  Congress  commenced 
March  4th,  1789,  but  this  seventh  article  of  amend 
ment  was  not  ratified,  and  did  not  become  a  part  of 
the  constitution,  according  to  Hickey,  (Rickey's  Const, 
p.  36,)  until  December  15,  1791. 

Until  this  time,  therefore,  according  to  Mr.  Webster, 
the  constitution  had  secured  no  right  to  a  trial  by  jury, 
except  in  the  case  of  criminal  prosecutions  ;  because, 
until  this  time,  there  was  no  clause  or  sentence  in  it 
"  having  the  least  bearing  on  the  subject  "  of  jury  trials 
in  any  but  criminal  cases. 


291 

Yet,  on  the  24th  of  September,  1789,  and  more  than 
two  years  previous  to  the  adoption  of  the  seventh 
amendment,  (l>y  which  alone,  according  to  Mr.  Web 
ster,  they  had  any  power  to  act  in  the  premises,) 
Congress  did  pass  the  judiciary  act;  by  the  ninth, 
twelfth,  and  thirteenth  sections  of  which  it  is  provided, 
that  the  trial  of  issues  in  fact,  in  the  district  courts,  in 
the  circuit  courts,  and  in  the  supreme  court,  shall, 
with  certain  exceptions,  be  by  jury. 

The  act  also  empowers  the  courts  to  grant  new 
trials  "  for  reasons  for  which  new  trials  have  usually 
been  granted  in  the  courts  of  law."  In  what  courts  of 
law?  Did  it  not  mean  the  courts  in  Westminster  Hall, 
and  those  in  this  country  formed  after  that  ancestral 
model  ?  And  does  not  this  show  beyond  question  or 
cavil,  that  the  principle  of  the  jury  trial,  in  civil  cases,  was 
incorporated  into  the  constitution  of  the  United  States, 
originally;  and  that  it  was  universally  understood  to 
be  so  by  its  framers,  and  by  their  contemporaries,  the 
members  of  the  first  Congress  ? 

From  the  constitution  alone,  then,  and  not  from  any 
power  above  it,  or  outside  of  it,  did  Congress  derive 
its  power,  on  the  24th  of  September,  1789,  and  more 
than  two  years  before  the  seventh  amendment  was 
adopted,  to  pass  the  judiciary  act,  and  to  fill  it  full  of  the 
fact  and  the  doctrine  of  jury  trials  in  civil  cases.  And 
if  Congress,  at  that  time,  had  legislated  on  the  subject 
of  fugitive  slaves,  would  it  not  have  had  the  same  power 
to  provide  the  trial  by  jury,  to  determine  the  question, 
slave  or  free,  as  it  had  to  provide  for  this  mode  of  trial 
in  other  cases  ? 

All  the  state  conventions  for  adopting  the  constitu 
tion,  whose  debates  are  preserved,  and  all  the  leading 
men  who  figured  in  them,  held,  —  contrary  to  Mr. 
Webster,  — 4hat  the  third  article  in  the  constitution, 
providing  for  courts,  carried  jury  trials  in  civil  cases 
with  it.  Mr.  Marshall,  afterwards  Chief  Justice  Marshall, 


292 

said  in  the  Virginia  convention,  "  Does  the  word 
court,  [in  the  constitution,]  only  mean  the  judges? 
Does  not  the  determination  of  a  jury  necessarily  lead 
to  the  judgment  of  the  court  ?  Is  there  any  thing 
which  gives  the  judges  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  mat 
ters  of  fact  ?  What  is  the  object  of  a  jury  trial  ?  To 
inform  the  court  of  the  facts.  When  a  court  has  cog 
nizance  of  facts,  does  it  not  follow  that  they  can  make 
inquiry  by  a  jury?  It  is  impossible  to  be  otherwise." 
—  3  Elliotts  Debates,  506. 

The  third  article  in  the  Virginia  bill  of  rights  was 
as  follows :  — 

"  In  controversies  respecting  property,  and  in  suits  between 
man  and  man,  the  ancient  trial  by  jury  is  preferable  to  any 
other,  and  ought  to  be  held  sacred." 

This  article  being  read  in  the  convention,  Judge 
Marshall  said  the  trial  by  jury  was  as  well  secured  by 
the  United  States  constitution,  as  by  the  Virginia  bill 
of  rights.  —  Ib.  524.  He  said  this  in  reference  to 
civil  cases. 

In  the  Massachusetts  convention,  it  was  said,  with 
out  a  doubt's  being  expressed  from  any  quarter,  that 
"  the  word  court  does  not,  either  by  popular  or  tech 
nical  construction,  exclude  the  use  of  a  jury  to  try  facts. 
When  people  in  common  language  talk  of  a  trial  at 
the  court  of  common  pleas,  or  the  supreme  judicial 
court,  do  they  not  include  all  the  branches  and  mem 
bers  of  such  courts,  the  jurors  as  well  as  the  judges? 
They  certainly  do,  whether  they  mention  the  jurors 
expressly  or  not.  Our  state  legislators  have  construed 
the  word  court  in  the  same  way." — 2  Elliott's  De 
bates,  127. 

Such  was  the  doctrine  maintained  by  the  leading 
minds  of  the  state  conventions ;  by  Christopher  Gore, 
in  Massachusetts ;  by  Judge  Wilson,  and  Chief  Justice 
McKean,  in  Pennsylvania  ;  by  Chief  Justice  Marshall, 


293 

Judge  Pendleton,  and  Mr.  Madison,  in  Virginia;  by 
Judge  Iredell,  in  North  Carolina,  and  many  other  dis 
tinguished  names. 

In  the  Virginia  convention,  objection  was  made  to 
the  constitution  because  it  did  not  expressly  secure  to 
the  accused  the  privilege  of  challenging  or  excepting 
to  jurors  in  criminal  cases.  But  Mr.  Pendleton, 
the  President  of  the  convention,  and  for  so  many  years 
afterwards  the  highest  judicial  officer  in  the  state,  re 
plied  :  "  When  the  constitution  says  that  the  trial  shall 
be  by  jury,  does  it  not  say  that  every  incident  will  go 
along  with  it  ?  "  — 3  Elliott's  Debates,  497. 

So  when  the  constitution  provided  for  "  courts,"  and 
defined  their  jurisdiction,  it  clearly  contemplated  the 
trial  by  jury,  in  regard  to  all  such  rights  of  the  citizen 
as  had  been  usually,  theretofore,  tried  by  a  jury.  Con 
gress,  indeed,  might  fail  to  perform  its  duty  ;  but  in 
such  case,  no  provisions  of  the  constitution,  however 
express  and  peremptory,  would  secure  the  rights  of  the 
people. 

It  is  perfectly  well  known  to  every  student  of  the 
constitution,  that  the  only  reason  why  that  instrument 
did  not  make  express  provision  for  the  trial  by  jury,  in 
civil  cases,  was  the  difficulty  of  running  the  dividing 
line  between  the  many  cases  that  should  be  so  tried, 
and  the  few  that  should  not.  All  were  agreed  that 
ninety-nine  per  cent,  of  all  civil  cases  should  be  tried 
by  jury  ;  but  they  could  not  agree  upon  the  classes  of 
cases  from  which  the  remaining  one  per  cent,  should 
be  taken. 

In  this  connection,  it  is  worth  while  to  notice  the 
heading  or  preamble  of  the  joint  resolutions  for  sub 
mitting  certain  proposed  amendments  of  the  constitu 
tion  to  the  states,  among  which  was  the  seventh.  It 
is  as  follows  :  — 

"  The   conventions  of  a    number  of  the  states   having  at 
the  time  of  their  adopting  the  constitution  expressed  a  desire, 
25* 


294 

in  order  to  prevent  misconstruction  or  abuse  of  its  powers, 
that  further  declaratory  or  restrictive  clauses  should  be  added  ; 
and  as  the  extending  the  ground  of  public-  confidence  in  the 
government  will  best  insure  the  beneficent  ends  of  its  institu 
tion,  RESOLVED,"  &c. 

From  this  it  appears  that  the  first  Congress  only  pro 
posed  to  submit  certain  "further  declaratory  and  re 
strictive  clauses"  which  were  "  to  prevent  miscon 
struction  or  abuse  of  its  powers."  This  heading  or 
title,  of  course,  does  not  enlarge  or  limit  the  meaning 
of  the  amendments ;  but  it  shows  the  view  which  their 
authors  had  of  their  scope  and  intendment.  And  what 
is  the  seventh  amendment  but  a  :<  declaratory  and 
restrictive  clause,"  securing  the  trial  by  jury,  in  cases 
at  common  law,  "  where  the  value  in  controversy  shall 
exceed  twenty  dollars,"  and  abandoning  it  where  the 
value  is  less  ? 

The  phraseology  of  the  amendment  is  full  of  sig 
nificance  :  "  The  right  of  trial  by  jury  shall  be  pre 
served."  Not  created,  but  preserved.  Not  instituted 
de  novo,  but  continued.  Will  Mr.  Webster  tell  me, 
how  a  right  can  be  preserved,  which  does  not  already 
exist  ? 

In  speaking  of  the  trial  by  jury,  in  criminal  cases, 
Judge  Story  uses  the  same  word.  He  says  it  was 
"  preserved."  In  neither  class  of  cases,  civil  or  criminal, 
was  it  ever  abandoned  or  lost,  through  the  fault  of  the 
constitution.  If  not  always  enjoyed  by  the  citizen,  it 
has  been  through  the  dereliction  of  Congress  in  not 
passing  the  requisite  laws. 

The  great  men  who  submitted  this  seventh  amend 
ment  to  the  states,  treated  the  trial  by  jury,  in  civil  cases, 
as  a  then  subsisting  constitutional  right.  They  passed  a 
law  to  put  the  practical  enjoyment  of  this  right  into  the 
hands  of  the  people,  well  knowing  that  there  is  scarcely 
a  right  which  we  hold  under  the  constitution  which  we 
can  beneficially  possess  or  use,  without  the  intervention 
of  some  law,  as  its  channel  or  medium. 


295 

Suppose  this  seventh  amendment  had  never  been 
adopted,  on  what  ground  would  the  trial  by  jnry,  in 
civil  cases,  have  rested  up  to  the  present  day  ?  Could 
it  have  been  taken  from  us  all,  in  all  cases  except  crim 
inal  ones,  by  any  corrupt  Congress? 

In  asserting,  therefore,  that,  besides  the  references 
he  has  made,  there  is  not  another  "  clause  or  sentence 
in  the  constitution,  having  the  least  bearing  on  the 
subject  "  of  jury  trials,  Mr.  Webster  is  contradicted  by 
the  members  of  the  general  convention,  by  the  state 
conventions,  by  the  senators  and  representatives,  who 
passed  the  judiciary  act,  by  President  Washington  who 
signed  it,  and  by  all  the  judges  who  administered  that 
act  until  the  seventh  amendment  was  adopted. 

II.  Where  it  is  the  duty  of  Congress  to  provide  for 
trial  by  jury. 

But  another  of  Mr.  Webster's  assertions  is  still  more 
extraordinary.  He  says  "  nothing  is  more  false  than 
that  such  jury  trial,  [a  trial  by  jury  for  an  alleged 
slave,  or  for  a  freeman  claimed  as  a  slave,]  is  demanded 
by  the  constitution,  either  in  its  letter  or  in  its  spirit." 

I  make  a  preliminary  remark  upon  the  grossness 
of  the  error  embodied  in  the  form  of  this  proposition. 

"  Nothing  is  more  false  ;  "  that  is,  if  I,  or  any  one, 
had  affirmed  that  our  constitution  forbids  trial  by  jury, 
in  all  cases,  under  penalty  of  death  ;  or  that  it  creates 
an  hereditary  despotism ;  or  that  it  establishes  the 
Catholic  religion,  with  the  accompaniment  of  an  inqui 
sition  for  each  state  ;  or  that  it  does  all  these  things  to 
gether ;  it  would  not  be  more  "  false  "  to  the  "  spirit  " 
of  the  constitution,  than  to  say  that  it  demands  the 
trial  by  jury,  when  a  man  who  is  seized  as  a  slave,  but 
who  asserts  that  he  is  free,  invokes  its  protection. 

But  this  pertains  to  the  form  only  of  his  assertion, 
and  is  immaterial  to  the  argument.  I  proceed  to  in 
quire  whether  its  substance  be  not  as  indefensible  as 
its  form. 


296 

In  another  part  of  Mr.  Webster's  letter,  he  says,  that 
he  sees  "  no  objection  to  the  provisions  of  the  law  " 
of  1793.  Of  course  ;  for  he  sees  no  objection  to  Mr. 
Butler's  bill,  and  its  amendments  ;  but  prefers  them  to 
Mr.  Seward's.  And  he  now  says,  there  is  nothing  in 
the  letter  or  in  the  "  spirit  "  of  the  constitution, 
which  demands  the  jury  trial  for  an  alleged  slave,  or 
for  a  freeman  captured  and  about  to  be  carried  away 
as  a  slave. 

Feeble  and  humble  as  I  am,  great  and  formidable  as 
he  is,  I  join  issue  with  him  on  this  momentous  ques 
tion,  and  put  myself  upon  the  country. 

Our  constitution,  as  the  present  generation  has  al 
ways  been  taught,  yearns  towards  liberty  and  the 
rights  of  man.  The  trial  by  jury,  in  the  important 
cases  of  life,  liberty,  and  property,  is  essential  to  these 
rights.  The  two,  therefore,  have  such  close  affinity 
for  each  other,  as  to  render  it  highly  probable,  if  not 
morally  certain,  that  the  framers  of  the  former  would 
make  provision  for  the  latter;  that1  they  would  lay 
hold  of  it,  as  by  a  law  of  instinct,  to  carry  out  their 
beneficent  purposes.  The  trial  by  jury  was  necessary 
to  the  vitality  of  the  constitution  ;  and,  I  think,  it 
would  not  be  too  strong  an  expression  to  say  that  the 
constitution,  as  it  came  from  the  hands  of  its  founders, 
necessitated  the  trial  by  jury. 

The  object  for  which  the  constitution  was  framed, 
as  set  forth  in  its  preamble,  —  namely,  to  "  establish 
justice,"  "promote  the  general  welfare,"  and  "secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty,"  to  the  people,  —  could  never 
be  accomplished  without  the  trial  by  jury.  The  pre 
amble  is  not  appealed  to  as  a  source  of  power  ;  but  it 
touches,  as  by  the  finger,  the  objects  which  it  contem 
plated  j  it  suggests  the  means  by  which  its  beneficent 
purposes  were  to  be  fulfilled,  and  it  indicates  the  rules 
of  interpretation  by  which  all  its  provisions  are  to  be 
expounded. 


297 

And  not  only  the  objects  for  which  the  constitution 
professes  to  exist,  but  historical  facts  from  the  time  of 
Magna  Charta,  and  before  that  time  ;  the  practice  of 
the  English  and  of  our  Colonial  and  Provincial  courts 
before  the  revolution  and  during  the  confederacy  ;  — 
in  fine,  all  analogies  and  tendencies  of  constitutional 
law,  and  whatever  belongs  to  ideas  of  freedom,  con 
spire  to  force  the  expectation  upon  us,  that,  in  a  matter 
of  such  vast  concernment  as  the  life-long  liberty  or 
bondage  of  a  man  and  his  offspring,  it  has  not  left  us 
without  the  right  of  trial  by  jury. 

The  very  first  law  "  for  the  general  good  of  the 
colony  of  New  Plymouth,"  (1623,)  was,  "  that  all 
criminal  acts,  and  also  all  matters  of  trespasses  and 
DEBTS,  between  man  and  man,  should  be  tried  by  the 
verdict  of  twelve  honest  men." 

In  that  fearful  array  of  crimes  which  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  charges  home  upon  the  king  of 
Great  Britain,  that  sublime  instrument  enumerates  the 
following  as  among  the  most  flagitious  :  "  For  depriving 
us,  in  many  cases,  of  the  benefits  of  trial  by  jury," 
and  "  for  protecting  his  troops,  by  a  mock  trial,  from 
punishment  for  any  murders  which  they  should  com 
mit  on  the  inhabitants  of  these  states." 

According  to  Blackstone,  the  right  to  a  trial  by  jury 
had  been  held,  "time  out  of  mind,"  to  be  the  birth 
right  of  Englishmen.  The  29th  chapter  of  the  Great 
Charter  guarantied  this  right,  not  only  in  cases  of  lib 
erty,  life,  and  limb,  but  in  cases  of  property,  real  and 
personal. 

In  England,  it  has  become  a  traditional  saying,  and 
drops  from  the  common  tongue,  that  the  great  object 
of  king,  lords,  and  commons,  is  to  get  twelve  men 
into  the  jury  box. 

Judge  Story  says,  "  When  our  more  immediate  an 
cestors  removed  to  America,  they  brought  this  great 
privilege  with  them,  as  their  birthright  and  inheritance. 


298 

as  a  part  of  that  admirable  common  law  which  had 
fenced  round,  and  interposed  barriers  on  every  side, 
against  the  approaches  of  arbitrary  power.  It  is  now 
incorporated  into  all  our  state  constitutions,  as  a  funda 
mental  right ;  and  the  constitution  of  the  United  States 
would  have  been  justly  obnoxious  to  the  most  conclu 
sive  objection,  if  it  had  not  recognized  and  confirmed 
it  in  the  most  solemn  terms."  —  3  Com.  652.  3. 

Is  it  conceivable,  then,  that  the  heroes  and  sages  of 
the  revolution,  who  rose  in  resistance  to  the  most  for 
midable  power  on  earth  ;  so  many  of  whom  rose 
against  their  own  kindred  in  the  mother  country,  be 
cause  they  loved  liberty  better  than  father  or  mother, 
or  brother  or  sister,  and  who  endured  the  privations  and 
horrors  of  a  seven  years' war ; — is  it  conceivable,  I 
say,  that,  when  they  had  achieved  their  independence, 
and  there  was  no  longer  any  earthly  power  to  control 
them,  they  should  have  framed  a  fundamental  law,  and 
should  not  have  imbued  that  law  with  the  "spirit"  of 
the  trial  by  jury,  as  its  breath  of  life  ?  As  British  sub 
jects,  they  were  entitled  to  this  trial.  As  Americans, 
did  they  renounce  it  ?  Did  they  wage  war  for  seven 
years  in  order  to  place  themselves  in  a  worse  condition 
than  they  had  been  placed  in  by  their  "  tyrant  "  ?  Mr. 
Webster  says  they  did.  He  charges  this  infinite  folly 
and  blindness  upon  them,  singly  and  collectively,  one 
and  all. 

I  will  now  fortify  this  historical  view,  by  a  reference 
to  some  decisions  of  the  supreme  court  which  explain 
and  define  the  meaning  of  the  seventh  amendment.* 

What  is  the  true  meaning  of  those  descriptive  words, 
"  suits  at  common  law  "  ?  Has  not  Mr.  Webster,  re 
lying  on  his  high  reputation,  disposed  of  this  matter  a 
little  too  summarily  ?  He  says,  "  The  constitution 

*  This  argument  may  be  found  repeated  and  enlarged  upon  in  a 
subsequent  part  of  the  present  volume,  p.  409,  et  seq.  It  is  retained 
here  only  to  preserve  the  logical  and  legal  symmetry  of  the  letter. 


299 

declares  that  in  suits  at  common  law,  the  trial  by  jury 
shall  be  preserved  ;  "  but  he  adds,  "  The  reclaiming  of 
a  fugitive  slave  is  not  a  suit  at  common  law." 

But  the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States  has 
furnished  us  with  an  authoritative  interpretation  of  the 
words  of  the  constitution  bearing  on  this  subject.  In 
the  case  of  Cohens  vs.  Virginia,  6  Wheaton,  R.  407, 
they  define  what  is  meant  by  a  "  suit."  These  are 
their  words  :  — 

"  What  is  a  suit  ?  We  understand  it  to  be  the  prosecution, 
or  pursuit,  of  some  claim,  demand,  or  request.  In  law  lan 
guage,  it  is  the  prosecution  of  some  demand  in  a  court  of 
justice.  '  The  remedy  for  every  species  of  wrong  is,'  says 
Judge  Blackstone,  v  the  being  put  in  possession  of  that  right 
whereof  the  party  injured  is  deprived.'  The  instruments 
\vhi-reby  this  remedy  is  obtained  are  a  diversity  of  suits  and 
actions,  which  are  defined  by  the  Mirror  to  be  c  the  lawful  de 
mand  of  one's  right ; '  or,  as  Bracton  and  Fleta  express  it  in 
the  words  of  Justinian,  ijus  proscquendi  in  judicio  quod 
alicui  debetur,'* —  (the  form  of  prosecuting  in  trial,  or  judg 
ment,  which  is  due  to  any  one.)  Blackstone  then  proceeds  to 
describe  every  species  of  remedy  by  suit ;  and  they  are  all 
cases  where  the  party  suing  claims  to  obtain  something  to 
which  he  has  a  right. 

"To  commence  a  suit  is  to  demand  something  by  the  insti 
tution  of  process  in  a  court  of  justice  ;  and  to  prosecute  the 
suit  is,  according  to  the  common  acceptation  of  language,  to 
continue  that  demand." 

According  to  the  supreme  court,  then,  a  suit  is  the 
prosecution  of  some  claim,  demand,  or  request.  Now, 
the  proceedings  for  a  fugitive  slave,  according  to  the 
very  letter  of  the  constitution,  are  instituted  to  prose 
cute  a  claim.  The  person  held  to  service  or  labor  is 
to  be  delivered  up,  "on  claim  of  the  party  to  whom 
such  service  or  labor  may  be  due." 

Still  further,  in  a  decision  bearing  directly  on  the 
right  to  a  trial  by  jury,  the  supreme  court  have  defined 
the  term  "  common  law  "  in  special  reference  to  its 


300 

meaning  in  the  amendment  to  the  constitution,  which 
secures  this  right  "in  suits  at  common  law."  These 
are  their  words  :  — 

"  It.  is  well  known  that  in  civil  causes,  in  courts  of  equity 
and  admiralty,  juries  do  not  intervene;  and  that  courts  of 
equity  use  the  trial  by  jury  only  in  extraordinary  cases,  to  in 
form  the  conscience  of  the  court.  When,  therefore,  we  find 
that  the  [7th]  amendment  requires  that  the  right  of  trial  by 
jury  shall  be  preserved,  in  suits  at  common  law,  the  natural 
conclusion  is,  that  this  distinction  was  present  to  the  minds  of 
the  frame rs  of  the  amendment.  By  common  law  they  meant 
what  the  constitution  denominated  in  the  third  article  l  law  ; ' 
not  merely  suits  which  the  common  law  recognized  among  its 
old  and  settled  proceedings  ;  but  suits  in  which  legal  rights 
were  to  be  ascertained  and  determined,  in  contradistinction  to 
those  in  which  equitable  rights  alone  were  recognized,  and 
equitable  remedies  were  administered,  or  in  which,  as  in  the 
admiralty,  a  mixture  of  public  law,  and  of  maritime  law  and 
equity,  was  often  found  in  the  same  suit.  Probably  there 
were  few,  if  any,  states  in  the  Union,  in  which  some  new  le 
gal  remedies,  differing  from  the  old  common  law  forms,  were 
not  in  use  ;  but  in  which,  however,  the  trial  by  jury  intervened, 
and  the  general  regulations  in  other  respects  were  according 
to  the  course  of  the  common  law.  Proceedings  in  cases  of 
partition,  and  of  foreign  and  domestic  attachment,  might  be 
cited  as  examples  variously  adopted  and  modified.  In  a  just 
sense,  the  amendment,  then,  may  well  be  construed  to  embrace- 
all  suits,  which  are  not  of  equity  or  admiralty  jurisdiction, 

WHATEVER     MAY     BE    THE     PECULIAR    FORM    WHICH    THEY    MAY 

ASSUME  TO  SETTLE  LEGAL  RIGHTS."  —  Parsons  vs.  Bedford,  3 
Petcrs's  Rep.  456,  7. 

The  last  sentence  I  have  underscored.  In  this  sen 
tence,  the  supreme  court  plainly  say.  that,  if  the 
subject  matter  of  the  litigation,  or  the  object  of  the 
proceeding,  be  to  determine  a  "legal  right  "  which  was 
formerly  determined  by  a  "  suit  at  common  law,"  then 
such  proceeding  is  embraced  in  the  seventh  amend 
ment,  arid  either  party  in  interest  has  a  right  to  the 
trial  by  jury.  Now,  is  it  not  clear  that  any  proceeding 


no  i 

which  determines  whether  a  man  owns  himself,  or  is 
owned  by  another  man,  and  which  delivers  one  man 
into  the  custody  of  another,  as  his  slave,  or  refuses  so 
to  deliver  him,  is,  "  whatever  peculiar  form  it  may  as 
sume,"  a  proceeding  "to  settle  a  legal  right," — the 
highest  legal  right?  It  is  not  a  right  in  equity,  in  ad- 
mirajty,  or  under  the  maritime  law;  but  strictly  and 
exclusively  a  legal  right,  and  nothing  else.  According 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  supreme  court,  then,  in  the  above- 
cited  case,  the  parties  to  such  a  proceeding  have  a 
right,  under  the  seventh  amendment,  to  a  trial  by  jury. 
At  least,  is  not  such  the  "  spirit  "  of  the  amendment  ? 

But  there  is  another  well-known  fact,  which  gives 
pertinence  arid  stringency  to  the  above  view.  At  com 
mon  law.  the  writ  etc  ho  mine  replegiando, —  the  writ 
of  personal  replevin,  or  for  replevying  a  man,  —  was 
an  original  writ ;  a  writ  which  the  party  could  sue  out 
of  right ;  one  to  be  granted  on  motion,  without  show 
ing  cause,  and  which  the  court  of  chancery  could  not 
supersede,  [t  was.  according  to  the  very  language  of 
our  supreme  court,  recognized  by  the  common  law 
"  among  its  old  and  settled  proceedings."  The  form 
of  it  is  found  in  that  great  arsenal  of  common  law 
writs,  the  Registrum  Breviutn.  A  man,  says  Comyn, 
may  have  a  homitie  rcplegiando  for  a  negro  ;  or  for  an 
Indian  brought  by  him  into  England  and  detained  from 
him  ;  or  it  may  be  brought  by  an  infant  against  his 
testamentary  guardian  :  or  by  a  villein  against  his  lord. 
(Dig.,  Title  Imprisonment,  L.  4.) 

If  it  could  be  brought  by  a  villein  against  his  lord, 
then  it  was  the  very  writ  for  an  alleged  slave  against 
an  alleging  owner.  It  was  the  mode  provided  by  the 
common  law  for  the  determination  of  the  legal  right 
asserted  in  a  human  being.  I  have  always  understood 
that,  before  the  revolution,  and  before  the  framing  of 
our  constitution,  Comyn's  Digest  was  a  work  of  the 
highest  authority.  It  must  have  been  well  known  to 
26 


302 

all  the  lawyers  in  the  convention.  Did  they  expect, 
then,  that  when  an  alleged  slave,  or  a  known  free 
man,  should  be  seized,  that  he  should  be  hurried  into 
bondage  without  any  right  to  this  ancient  muniment 
of  the  subject's  liberties  ? 

But  "  the  reclaiming  of  a  fugitive  slave,"  says  Mr. 
Webster,  "  is  not  a  suit  at  the  common  law."  .The 
proceedings  provided  for  by  the  statute  of  1793,  to 
which  he  "  sees  no  objection,"  have  no  analogy  to  the 
writ  de  homine  replegiando.  But  can  you  destroy  the 
right  to  a  jury  trial  by  changing  the  process  ?  A  sand- 
hiller  from  Georgia  or  North  Carolina  cannot  come  to 
Massachusetts  and  eject  Mr.  Webster  from  his  Marsh- 
field  farm  without  being  compelled  to  submit  the 
question  of  title  to  a  jury.  But  suppose  Congress 
should  say,  in  effect,  that  any  one  of  the  seventeen 
thousand  postmasters  in  the  United  States  might  be 
brought  into  Massachusetts,  (and,  among  so  numerous 
a  body,  it  is  no  libel  to  say  there  are  some  reckless 
men,)  and  that  the  said  sand-hiller  might  go  before  the 
said  imported  postmaster,  and  after  proof  "  to  his  sat 
isfaction,"  "  either  by  oral  testimony  or  by  affidavit," 
—  an  affidavit,  be  it  remembered,  taken  any  where  in 
the  United  States,  —  then  the  claimant  shall  be  put 
into  immediate  possession  of  the  said  farm,  with  a 
right  to  recover  costs  ;  and  suppose  Mr.  Webster  should 
spurn  the  authority  of  this  illegitimate  court,  and  de 
mand  an  observance  of  the  ancient  forms  of  law,  and 
a  trial  by  jury  under  the  seventh  amendment;  then 
the  claimant  has  only  to  borrow  Mr.  Webster's  own 
words,  and  say,  "  This  is  not  a  suit  at  the  common 
law  :  "  —  suppose  all  this,  I  say,  and  I  would  then  ask 
if  such  a  proceeding  would  be  satisfactory  to  the  last- 
named  gentleman  ?  The  common  sense  of  mankind 
is  authority  good  enough  to  answer  such  a  question  ; 
but  we  have  high  legal  authority  in  addition. 

In   Baker  vs.  Riddle,   Mr.  Justice  Baldwin,  one  of 


tlic  judges  of  the  supreme  court  of  (lie  United  States, 
hold  that  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  Congress  to  take 
away  the  right  of  trial  hy  jury,  secured  by  the  seventh 
amendment,  either,  —  "  1.  By  an  organization  of  the 
courts  in  such  a  manner  as  not  to  secure  it  to  suitors  ;  " 
or, — "2.  By  Authorizing  the  courts  to  exercise,  or 
their  assumption  of,  equity  or  admiralty  jurisdiction 
over  cases  at  law."  *'  This  amendment,"  says  he, 
"  preserves  the  right  of  jury  trial  against  any  infringe 
ment  by  any  department  of  the  government."  —  Bald 
win's  Rep.  404. 

Now,  what  was  Mr.  Butler's  bill  but  "a  new  organ 
ization  of  the  courts,"  or,  rather,  a  new  creation  of  some 
twenty  thousand  courts,  "  in  such  a  manner  as  not  to 
secure  [the  right  of  trial  by  jury]  to  suitors  ?  "  It  was, 
indeed,  a  violation  of  both  of  the  principles  laid  down 
by  Judge  Baldwin.  It  was  the  creation  of  tribunals 
unknown  to  the  common  law.  and  authorizing  those 
tribunals  to  decide  upon  rights  not  belonging  to  either 
"equity  or  admiralty  jurisdiction." 

In  this  connection,  I  will  refer  to  the  case  of  Lee  vs. 
Lee.  8  Petcrs's  Rep.  44. 

By  act  of  Congress  of  April  2.  1816,  it  was  declared 
that  no  cause  should  be  removed  from  the  circuit  court 
of  the  District  of  Columbia  to  the  supreme  court  by 
appeal  or  writ  of  error,  "  unless  the  matter  in  dispute 
shall  be  of  the  value  of  one  thousand  dollars  or  up 
wards."  The  plaintiffs  in  error  were  claimed  as  slaves. 
Their  petition  for  freedom  in  the  court  below  had  been 
decided  against  them  ;  and  from  this  decision  they  ap 
pealed.  The  defendant  in  error  took  the  objection 
that  they, — their  bodies  and  souls,  —  were  not  worth 
one  thousand  dollars,  and  therefore  that  they  had  no 
right  to  appeal.  But  the  court  said, — 

"  The  matter  in  dispute,  in  this  case,  is  the  freedom  of  the 
petitioners.  The  judgment  of  the  court  below  is  against  their 
claims  to  freedom  ;  the  matter  in  dispute  is,  therefore,  to  the 


304 

plaintiffs  in  error,  the  value  of  their  freedom,  and  this  is  not 
susceptible  of  a  pecuniary  valuation.  Had  the  judgment  been 
in  favor  of  the  petitioners,  and  the  writ  of  error  brought  by 
the  party  claiming  to  be  the  owner,  the  value  of  the  slaves  as 
property  would  have  been  the  matter  in  dispute,  and  affidavits 
might  be  admitted  to  ascertain  such  value.  m  But  affidavits  es 
timating  the  value  of  freedom  are  entirely  inadmissible  ;  and 
no  doubt  is  entertained  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court." 

Now,  if  the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States,  in 
construing  a  law,  felt  constrained  by  their  oaths  to  hold 
the  freedom  of  a  man,  —  of  any  man,  though  he  might 
be  a  drivelling  idiot,  or  stretched  upon  his  death  bed, 
with  only  another  hour  to  breathe,  —  to  be  worth  more 
than  a  thousand  dollars,  how  can  a  senator  of  the 
United  States  say,  that  in  passing  a  law,  under  which 
human  liberty  may  be  retained  or  lost,  he  is  not  bound 
at  least  by  the  "  spirit "  of  the  constitution,  if  not  by 
its  letter,  to  hold  that  human  liberty  to  be  of  greater 
value  than  twenty  dollars,  and  therefore  to  provide  the 
trial  by  jury  for  its  protection  ?  What  can  prove  more 
strikingly  that  Mr.  Webster  violates  the  whole  "  spirit  " 
of  the  constitution,  when  the  frame rs  and  ratifiers  of 
this  amendment  covenanted  for  and  decreed  the  trial 
by  jury,  for  such  a  paltry  sum  of  money  ;  and  when 
the  judges  of  the  supreme  court  held  human  liberty  to 
be  worth  more  than  any  nameable  sum  of  money,  while 
he  regards  it  as  a  thing  to  be  disposed  of  by  any  corrupt 
postmaster,  which  any  corrupt  administration  may  cor 
ruptly  appoint.  Yet  he  says,  "  Nothing  can  be  more 
false  than  that  a  jury  trial  is  demanded  in  cases  of  this 
kind  by  the  constitution,  either  in  its  letter,  or  in  its 
spirit." 

I  wish  I  could  find,  or  felt  at  liberty  to  coin  some 
milder  word  ;  but  for  want  of  a  better,  I  must  say 
that  Mr.  Webster  seems  to  me,  throughout  this  whole 
matter,  to  dogmatize.  He  makes  strong  assertions 
without  offering  even  weak  reasons.  Of  this  character 


305 

was  his  annunciation  of  the  discovery  of  a   new  law, 

—  "the  law  of  physical   geography,"  —  which  was  to 
suspend  moral  agency,  and  take  from  man   his  power 
to  commit  crime  against  his  brother  ;  as  though  in  as 
cending  hill-sides,  freedom  and  slavery  lie  in  different 
atmospherical  strata,  and  are  bounded  by  each  other  im 
passably  ;  as  though  there  were  any  mountain  so  "  ex 
ceeding   high,"  to  whose  top  even  Jesus  Christ  could 
go,  that  Satan  could  not  go  there  to*  tempt  him.    This 
does  not  strike  the  common  mind  like  a  true  discovery  ; 

—  like  the  law  of  gravitation,  for  instance,  discovered 
by  Newton,  or  the  existence  of  the  planet  Neptune,  by 
Leverrier.     It  is  rather  like  that  earliest  pretended  dis 
covery  on  record,  which  was  designed  to  seduce,  and 
did  seduce,  the  first  parents  of  us  all.      Ye  may  eat  of 
the  forbidden  tree,  for  ye  shall  NOT  surely  die.     So  Mr. 
Webster  says,  Let  slaves  be  driven  in  coffles,  or  car 
ried  in  ships'  holds  to  the  new  territories  ;  they  cannot 
live   there.      Will    not  the   results  of  the    two  experi 
ments    bear  a  lively  analogy  to    each    other,   and    be 
likely  to  reflect  similar  credit  upon  their  authors? 

So,  too,  when  he  tore  some  of  the  brightest  pages 
from  the  New  Testament,  by  proclaiming  that  "  there 
is  to  be  found  no  injunction  against  that  relation  [of 
slavery]  between  man  and  man,  in  the  teachings  of  the 
gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  of  any  of  his  apostles"! 
Upon  how  many  Christian  hearts  did  this  sentiment 
fall  like  an  anathema  against  all  truth.  He  does  not 
say  any  express  injunction,  but  "no  injunction;  "  — 
none  of  any  kind.  No  positive  injunction  against 
slavery  in  the  New  Testament! — a  book  designed  to 
regulate  our  life  and  condition  for  two  worlds ;  yet, 
altogether,  not  so  large  as  many  a  congressional  report  ; 
less  voluminous  than  the  ordinances  of  many  of  our 
city  governments  :  —  a  book,  therefore,  which,  from 
the  necessity  of  the  case,  must  deal  with  great  and 
immortal  principles,  and  could  not  descend  into 
26* 


306 

specification  and  detail ;  —  and  because  such  a  book  as 
this  contains  no  express  injunction  against  slavery, 
therefore  slavery  is  not  forbidden  by  it,  but  has  the 
implied  approval  of  its  silence  !  Surely,  never  was 
there  a  more  sinister,  unsound,  unchristian  argument 
uttered  by  infidel  or  pagan.  Is  there  any  express  in 
junction  "  in  the  teachings  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ,  or  of  any  of  his  apostles,"  commanding  us  to 
declare  the  African  slave  trade  piracy  ?  Is  there  any 
express  injunction  "in  the  teachings  of  the  gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ,  or  of  any  of  his  apostles,"  against  can 
nibalism  ?  Do  they  any  where  say,  "  Ye  shall  not  eat 
one  another  ?  "  Yet  what  enormity  and  flagitiousness 
would  it  be  to  infer,  that,  therefore,  men  and  women 
may  turn  ogres  and  ogresses,  and  eat  human  flesh  as 
they  do  mutton  and  sirloin.  The  inference  in  the 
latter  case  is  every  whit  as  warrantable  and  as  sound, 
as  in  the  former.  Yet  I  consider  that  this  theological 
argument  does  not  violate  the  "  spirit  "  of  the  gospel, 
any  more  than  his  constitutional  argument  violates  the 
"  spirit  "  of  the  constitution.  John  Wesley,  who  had 
lived  amid  slavery,  denominates  it  the  "  sum  of  all 
villanies,"  and  if  Christ  came  into  this  world  and  left 
it,  without  permeating  and  saturating  all  his  teachings 
with  injunctions  against  the  injustice,  cruelty,  pride, 
avarice,  lust,  love  of  domination,  and  love  of  adulation, 
which  are  the  inseparable  accompaniments  of  slavery, 
then  I  think  the  Christian  world  will  cry  out,  that  so 
far  as  this  life  is  concerned,  his  mission  was  substan 
tially  fruitless. 

"  O,  star-eyed  Science  !  hast  thou  wandered  there, 
To  bring  us  back  these  tidings  of  despair  ?  " 

So,  if  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  contains 
not  even  any  implied  security  for  the  liberty  of  all  the 
colored  population  in  the  free  states  and  territories,  and 
for  the  trial  by  jury  as  the  only  adequate  means  of 


307 

securing  that  liberty,  then  would  it  not  be  more  credit 
able  to  its  framers  never  to  have  put  their  signatures 
to  it? 

Let  me  here  compare  the  relative  value  of  life  or 
property  on  the  one  side,  with  liberty  on  the  other,  and 
see  what  inference  must  be  drawn  in  favor  of  affording 
as  great  a  protection  to  the  latter  as  to  the  former. 

The  fifth  article  of  amendment  declares  that  "  no 
person  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  prop 
erty,  without  due  process  of  law."  The  commenta 
tors  say  that  these  words,  "  due  process  of  law,"  are 
the  equivalent  of  the  phrase  "  the  law  of  the  land,"  in 
the  2l.)tli  chapter  of  Magna  Charta  ;  and  hence  that 
'•  this  clause  in  effect  affirms  the  right  of  trial  accord 
ing  to  the  process  and  proceedings  of  the  common 
law;"  that  is,  by  jury.  (See  Story's  Comm.  661  ;  2 
lust.  50,  51;  2  Kent's  Comm.  10;  1  Tucker's  Black. 
App.  304.) 

Now,  consider  that  the  general  right  of  trial  by 
jury,  in  cases  of  life,  was  expressly  secured  by  the 
constitution  as  originally  adopted  ;  that,  somewhat 
more  than  three  years  afterwards,  the  same  right- was 
expressly  secured  for  property,  in  suits  at  common  law, 
whenever  the  value  in  controversy  should  exceed 
twenty  dollars  ;  and  then  say  whether  there  is  not  the 
strongest  implication  in  favor  of  the  same  right,  in 
cases  of  human  liberty,  which  is  so  much  more  pre 
cious  than  life  and  property  combined.  I  do  not  here 
say  it  is  an  implication  that  binds  the  courts  in  admin 
istering  a  law.  That  is  not  the  point  under  discussion. 
But  is  it  not  an  implication  that  binds  the  legislator,  so 
that  when  legislating  on  the  subject,  he  cannot  con 
sciously  and  wilfully  abandon  it  without  infidelity  to 
his  oath  ?  I  do  not  believe  that  many  men  from  the 
free  states  will  ever  be  found  in  Congress  who  will  not 
take  this  view  of  the  subject.  Indeed,  not  a  few  of 
the  best  lawvers  and  jurists  have  held  that  the 


308 

implication  binds  the  courts  ;  and  therefore  that  the 
statute  of  1793  is  unconstitutional.* 

Mr.  Webster  treats  the  two  cases,  of  fugitives  from 
justice  and  fugitives  from  service,  alike  ;  although  one 
can  almost  adopt  his  own  language,  and  say  that 
"  nothing  is  more  false  "  than  that  they  are  alike.  In 
regard  to  the  first  class,  the  constitution  says,  a  person 
11  charged "  with  treason,  &c.  ;  but  in  regard  to  the 
second  class,  it  says  no  person  "  held"  &c. 

According  to  the  obvious  intent  of  this  language, 
the  alleged  fugitive  must  be  proved  to  be  held,  bound, 
obligated.  It  is  not  enough  that  he  be  charged  to  be 
"  held  "  to  service,  though  it  is  enough  that  a  man  be 
"  charged  "  with  crime.  To  bring  the  first  case  within 
the  legal  category  of  the  second,  its  terms  should  be, 
"  a  person  guilty  of  treason,"  &c.,  shall  be  delivered 
np.  Were  such  the  phraseology,  would  any  one  doubt 
that  proof  of  guilt  should  precede  delivery,  and  that 
there  could  be  no  other  foundation  for  it  ? 

Mr.  Webster  says,  "perhaps  the  only  insuperable 
difficulty"  to  a  trial  by  a  jury,  "has  been  created  by 
the'states  themselves."  Suppose  this  to  be  so,  I  would 
ask  whose  duty  is  it  to  act  first,  —  that  of  Congress  to 
provide  the  trial,  or  that  of  the  states  to  remove  the 
impediment?  Shall  the  states  repeal  their  laws  first, 
and  leave  the  liberty  of  the  citizens  in  jeopardy  ;  or 
shall  not  Congress  legislate  first,  and  secure  that  lib 
erty  ?  Which  is  of  the  greater  importance,  that  the 
owner  should  recover  his  slave,  or  that  the  citizen 
should  retain  his  freedom?  I  answer  according  to  the 
language  which  the  criminal  law  uses  respecting  guilt 
and  innocence,  that  it  is  better  that  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine,  that  is,  an  indefinite  number  of  slaves 
should  escape,  than  that  one  free  man  should  be  deliv 
ered  into  bondage. 

*  See  an  elaborate  opinion  of  Chancellor  Walworth,  14  Wend.  507, 
Jack  vs.  Martin. 


309 

Besides,  I  think  no  state  legislated  on  the  subject  for 
the  protection  of  its  own  citizens,  until  1842.  This 
was  after  Congress  had  neglected,  for  more  than  fifty 
years,  to  do  its  duty.  Why,  then,  should  Mr.  Webster 
cast  the  blame  upon  the  states  which  forbore  for  more 
than  fifty  years  to  act  protectively  for  themselves,  when 
Congress,  of  which  he  had  been  a  leading  member  for 
nearly  forty  years,  had  endangered,  instead  of  securing, 
the  liberty  of  their  citizens?  When  he  said  that 
"  every  member  of  every  northern  legislature  is  bound 
by  oath  to  support  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,"  why  did  not  the  retort  suddenly  rise  to  his 
mind  that  he  was  bound  by  oath  not  less  than  they; 
and  that  his  oath  embraced  the  men  that  owned  free 
dom,  not  less  than  the  men  that  owned  slaves  ?  Be 
sides,  he  charges  only  a  part  of  the  free  states  with 
being  guilty  of  unjust  legislation.  Shall  the  innocent 
states  suffer  because  of  the  others'  offence  ?  Rather 
shall  not  Congress  first  supply  the  means  of  protection 
to  the  citizens  of  all  ? 

It  seems  to  me,  too,  that  the  fourth  amendment  has 
an  important  "  bearing  upon  the  subject"  because  it 
shows  that  the  master-thought  of  our  fathers,  in  form 
ing  the  constitution,  was  to  secure  the  liberties  of  the 
citizen.  It  provides  against  "  unreasonable  seizures  " 
of  "  persons."  I  suppose  the  main  idea  of  this  amend 
ment  was  to  secure  the  citizen  against  "  unreasonable 
seizure,"  even  in  cases  where  he  should  afterwards, 
and  at  some  time,  be  brought  to  trial  according  to  the 
forms  of  the  common  law.  But  what  "  seizure  "  can 
be  more  u  unreasonable,"  than  one  whose  object  is, 
not  an  ultimate  trial,  but  bondage  forever,  without 
trial  ?  Can  mortal  imagination  conceive  of  any  seiz 
ure  less  entitled  than  this  to  be  called  "  reasonable  ?  " 
With  what  indignation  did  our  fathers  frown  because 
they  were  transported  beyond  seas  to  be  tried  ;  yet,  by 
our  present  law,  and  by  the  law  which  Mr.  Webster 


310 

promises  to  support,  a  free  man  may  be  transported,  if 
not  beyond  seas,  at  least  beyond  lands,  and  beyond 
states,  not  to  be  tried,  but  to  be  held  in  slavery  forever 
without  trial.  If  a  free  citizen  of  Massachusetts 
should  be  seized  and  plunged  into  a  Massachusetts 
prison,  to  be  kept  there  for  life  ;  and  his  children,  as  a 
consequence  of  his  fate,  were  put  into  the  same,  or 
into  other  prisons,  as  fast  as  they  were  born,  to  be  also 
kept  for  life  ;  and  such  was  the  original  object  and 
avowed  purpose  of  the  seizure,  would  not  this  conflict 
a  little  with  the  "  spirit "  of  the  fourth  amendment? 
And  does  this  proceeding  conflict  with  this  "spirit" 
any  the  less,  because  the  prison  is  a  southern  rice 
swamp,  or  cotton  field,  where  the  nearest  door  or  out 
let  of  escape  is  more  than  a  hundred  miles  from  the 
spot  of  confinement  ?  In  common  law  actions,  trover, 
detinue,  replevin,  &c.,  &c.,  the  trial  is  to  be  in  the 
vicinage,  except  there  is  some  overpowering  reason  for 
changing  the  venue,  or  place  of  trial.  But  here  is  a 
transfer  of  the  party,  not  for  a  trial,  but  for  evading  a 
trial. 

I  submit,  then,  to  the  public,  that  here  are  three 
provisions  of  the  constitution,  each  one  of  which  does 
have  "a  bearing  on  the  subject"  Each  strengthens 
the  other.  They  form  a  triple  implication,  if  not  a 
trinoda  necessitas,  which  no  man,  however  powerful 
he  may  be,  can  break. 

The  argument  which  the  lawyers  call  ab  inconveni- 
enti,  —  the  argument  from  inconvenience,  —  has  been 
pressed  into  the  service  of  the  slaveholder  to  endanger 
the  liberties  of  the  citizen.  I  answer,  there  are  two  sides 
to  this  argument ;  nor  was  it  wise  in  the  slaveholder,  or 
his  northern  friends,  to  suggest  it.  It  seems  to  me  quite 
as  inconvenient  fora  free  man  to  lose  his  liberty,  as  for 
a  slaveholder  to  lose  his  slave.  If  a  southern  man 
sues  a  northern  one  for  the  value  of  a  bale  of  cotton 
or  a  barrel  of  rice,  must  not  the  plaintiff  await  the 


311 

next  term  of  the  court  before  he  can  enter  his  action, 
abide  by  the  rules  of  the  court  respecting  continu 
ances,  and  submit  to  the  order  of  business  in  taking 
his  turn  before  a  jury  ?  To  obviate  this  inconven 
ience,  has  any  legislature  or  any  court  ever  proposed 
to  set  aside  or  annul,  at  once,  all  the  securities  by 
which  we  hold  property  arid  life  ?  And  how  stands 
the  question  respecting  evidence  or  proof?  If  difficult 
for  a  slave  claimant,  from  Texas,  to  prove  title  to  his 
slave  in  Massachusetts,  how  infinitely  more  difficult 
for  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts  to  prove  title  to  himself 
in  Texas.  But  Mr.  Webster  says  there  are  indepen 
dent  courts  at  the  south,  "always  open  and  ready  to 
receive  and  decide  upon  petitions  or  applications  for 
freedom."  Suppose  this  to  be  true  ;  how  is  a  man  or 
a  woman,  whose  master  knows  that  he  or  she  is  free, 
to  get  to  the  courts  ?  Mr.  Webster  seems  to  think 
that  as  soon  as  a  kidnapping  slave  dealer  shall  trans 
port  his  human  prey  to  the  south,  he  will  at  once  take 
him  to,  or  allow  him  to  go  before  a  court  of  justice,  or 
will  sell  him  to  some  brother  Samaritan  who  will 
do  so.  Does  not  every  body  know  that  any  man,  who 
is  capable  of  the  enormous  guilt  of  seizing  or  buying 
a  freeman,  will  make  it  impossible  for  that  freeman  to 
regain  his  birthright  ? 

Mr.  Webster  says,  persuasively,  that  the  alleged 
slave  "  is  only  remitted,  for  inquiry  into  his  rights,  to 
the  state  from  Avhich  he  fled."  But  suppose  he  had 
never  "fled,"  but  was  demeaning  himself  as  a  peace 
able  citizen,  under  the  solemnly  pledged  protection  of 
the  government,  on  the  soil  where  he  was  born  !  This 
is  the  false  idea  that  underlies  the  whole  of  Mr.  Web 
ster's  seductive  letter,  that  under  such  a  bill  as  Mr. 
Butler's,  nobody  but  a  slave  would  ever  be  arrested. 

I  have  no  doubt  that  what  Mr.  Webster  says  about 
southern  courts  being  "  fair  and  upright,"  is  very  gen 
erally  and  extensively  true  :  but  I  have  had  a  little 


312 

personal  knowledge  of  southern  courts,  arid  I  have  no 
hesitation  in  saying  that  there  has  been  one,  at  least, 
before  which,  if  a  slave  were  suing  for  his  freedom, 
and  any  popular  clamor  against  him  should  exist,  he 
would  have  no  more  hope  of  obtaining  his  liberty 
through  the  "fairness"  of  the  court,  than,  if  thrown 
overboard  in  the  middle  of  the  Atlantic  ocean,  lie 
would  have  of  saving  his  life  by  swimming  ashore. 

Mr.  Webster  holds  Massachusetts  up  to  the  ridicule 
of  the  world,  because,  as  he  says,  she  "  grows  fervid 
on  Pennsylvania  wrongs  ;  "  and  he  has  deemed  it  his 
duty  to  inquire  how  many  seizures  of  fugitive  slaves 
have  occurred  in  New  England  within  our  time.  Is 
this  the  Christian  standard  by  which  to  estimate  the 
evil  of  encroachments  upon  the  most  sacred  rights  of 
men  ?  If  I  repose  in  contentment  and  indifference, 
because  my  own  section,  or  state,  or  county,  is  as  yet 
but  a  partial  sufferer,  why  should  I  not  continue  con 
tented  and  indifferent  while  I  myself  am  safe  ?  In 
providing  for  the  liberties  of  the  citizen,  under  a  com 
mon  government,  I  think  Massachusetts  worthy  of  all 
honor  and  not  of  ridicule,  because  she  does  "  grow 
fervid  on  Pennsylvania  wrongs,"  and  on  the  wrongs 
of  an  entire  race,  whether  in  Pennsylvania  or  Califor 
nia,  or  any  where  within  the  boundaries  of  our  own 
country.  I  see  no  reason  why  my  sympathies  as  a 
man,  or  the  obligations  of  my  oath  as  an  officer,  in  re 
gard  to  the  nearer  or  the  remoter  states,  should  be  in 
versely  as  the  squares  of  the  distances.  Even  with 
regard  to  foreign  countries,  did  Mr.  Webster  think  so, 
in  those  better  days,  when  his  eloquent  appeal  for  op 
pressed  and  bleeding  Greece  roused  the  nation,  like  the 
voice  of  a  clarion.  Did  Mr.  Webster  deem  it  neces 
sary  to  make  inquisitions  through  all  the  New  England 
States,  to  learn  how  many  Hungarian  patriots  they  had 
seen  shot  at  the  tap  of  drum,  or  how  many  noble  Hun 
garian  women  had  been  stripped  and  whipped  in  their 


313 

market  places,  before  he  thrilled  the  heart  of  the  na 
tion  at  the  wrongs  of  Kossuth  and  his  compatriots, 
and  invoked  the  execrations  of  the  world  upon  the 
Austrian  and  Russian  despots  ?  I  see  no  difference 
between  these  cases,  which  is  not  in  favor  of  our  home 
interests,  of  our  own  domestic  rights,  except  the  differ 
ence  of  their  bearings  upon  partisan  politics  and  pres 
idential  rivalries.  Mr.  Webster  quotes  and  commends 
Mr.  Hissell,  who  said  that  those  southern  states  which 
had  suffered  the  least  from  loss  of  slaves,  made  the 
greatest  clamor.  That  statement  of  a  fact  was  well 
put  by  Mr.  Bissell  ;  but  was  it  well  applied  by  Mr. 
Webster  ?  In  the  statement,  it  was  a  question  as  to 
the  loss  of  property.  In  the  application,  it  is  a  ques 
tion  as  to  the  loss  of  liberty.  The  latter  is  not,  there 
fore,  the  "  counterpart  "  of  the  former.  Blindness  to 
the  distinction  between  the  value  and  the  principle  of 
property,  and  the  value  and  the  principle  of  liberty, 
could  alone  have  permitted  the  comparison. 

But  I  have  extended  this  communication  greatly  be 
yond  my  original  purpose.  Several  other  topics  con 
tained  in  Mr.  Webster's  speech,  or  growing  out  of  what 
has  since  happened  in  relation  to  it,  and  hardly  less 
important  than  those  already  considered,  must  await 
another  opportunity  for  discussion  ;  unless,  indeed, 
some  disposal  of  -the  question  shall  render  further  dis 
cussion  unnecessary. 

I  am  not  unmindful  of  the  position  in  which  I  stand. 
I  am  not  unaware  that  circumstances  have  placed  me 
in  an  antagonist  relation  to  a  man  whose  vast  powers 
of  intellect  the  world  has  long  so  vividly  enjoyed  and 
so  profoundly  admired.  I  well  know  that  a  personal 
contest  between  us  seems  unequal,  far  more  than  did 
the  impending  combat  between  the  Hebrew  stripling 
and  that  champion  of  the  Philistines  who  had  a  hel 
met  of  brass  upon  his  head,  and  greaves  of  brass  upon 
his  legs,  and  the  staff  of  whose  spear  was  like  a  weav- 
27 


314 

er's  beam.  But  the  contest  is  not  between  us.  It  is 
between  truth  and  error  ;  and  just  so  certain  as  the 
spirit  of  Good  will  prevail  over  the  spirit  of  Evil,  just 
so  certain  will  Truth  ultimately  triumph.  In  such  a 
case  as  this,  there  is  one  point  of  view  in  which  Mr. 
Webster  is  a  desirable  antagonist  ;  for  the  thick  and 
far-beaming  points  of  light  which  he  has  left  all  along 
his  former  course  of  life,  cannot  fail  to  expose,  to  all 
eyes  but  his  own,  the  devious  path  into  which  he  has 
now  wandered. 

HORACE   MANN. 
WASHINGTON,  June  6,  1850. 


Several  editions  of  the  preceding  Letters  having  been 
exhausted,  another  was  printed,  under  date  of  July  8,  1850, 
with  Notes. 


315 


NOTES 

TO  THE  PRECEDING   LETTERS. 

I  HAD  hoped  not  to  be  required  to  say  more  on  the  subject 
discussed  in  the  above  Letters ;  but,  during  the  last  week, 
Mr.  Webster  has  issued,  in  a  pamphlet  form,  a  speech  made 
by  him  in  the  Senate  on  the  17th  ult.,  accompanied  by  his 
letter,  dated  on  the  same  day,  to  some  gentlemen  on  the 
Kennebec  River.  In  this  letter,  Mr.  Webster  has  referred  to 
me  again  ;  and  I  regret  exceedingly  to  say,  that  he  seems  to 
have  given  himself  full  license  to  depart  from  all  the  rules  of 
courtesy  belonging  to  a  gentleman,  and  to  disobey  the  obliga 
tions  of  truth  belonging  to  a  man. 

That  I  may  not  be  supposed  to  make  any  over-statement 
respecting  the  character  of  Mr.  Webster's  language  towards 
me,  as  expressed  in  this  letter,  I  quote  a  specimen  or  two 
from  it. 

"  A  pamphlet  has  been  put  into  circulation,"  says  he,  referring  to 
the  first  of  the  above  two  letters,  "  in  which  it  is  said  that  my  remark 
is  '  undertaking  to  settle  by  mountains  and  rivers,  and  not  by  the  Ten 
Commandments,  the  question  of  human  duty.'  •  Cease  to  transcribe,' 
it  adds,  « upon  the  statute  book  what  our  wisest  and  best  men  believed 
to  be  the  will  of  God,  in  regard  to  our  wordly  affairs,  and  the  pas 
sions  which  we  think  appropriate  to  devils  will  soon  take  possession 
of  society.'  "  He  then  adds,  "  One  hardly  knows  which  most  to 
contemn,  the  nonsense  or  the  dishonesty  of  such  commentaries  on 
another's  words.  I  know  no  passion  more  appropriate  to  devils  than 
the  passion  for  gross  misrepresentation  and  libel,"  &c.,  &c. 

The  angry  and  reproachful  language,  in  which  Mr.  Web 
ster  has  here  indulged  himself,  releases  me  from  all  further 
obligation  to  treat  him  with  personal  regard.  Yet  I  do  not 
mean  to  avail  myself  of  this  release.  Under  our  present 
relations,  however,  I  do  feel  at  liberty  to  use  considerable 
plainness  of  speech. 

1.  Let  me  first  refer  to  a  misrepresentation  by  Mr.  Web 
ster  of  a  plain  matter  of  fact.  In  professing  to  quote,  from 


316 

his  7th  of  March  speech,  a  passage  on  which  I  had  made  a 
criticism,  he  alters  the  passage  so  as  to  evade  the  criticism, 
and  then  condemns  me  for  making  it.  The  original  passage 
in  his  speech  read  as  follows  :  "  I  would  not  take  pains  to 
reaffirm  an  ordinance  of  Nature,  nor  to  reenact  the  will  of 
God."  This  was  the  sentiment  I  criticized.  It  appears  in 
these  words  in  the  National  Intelligencer,  in  the  Washington 
Union,  in  the  Republic,  in  the  Globe,  and  in  the  pamphlet 
edition  of  his  speech,  which  he  dedicated  to  the  people  of 
Massachusetts.  But  in  the  Kennebec  letter,  in  order  to  elude 
the  point  of  my  criticism,  he  has  interpolated  a  word  into  the 
sentence,  which  changes  its  whole  meaning.  Affirming  that 
he  quotes  himself,  he  says,  "I  would  not  take  pains  USE 
LESSLY  to  reaffirm  an  ordinance  of  Nature,  or  to  reenact  the 
will  of  God."  By  foisting  in  the  word  which  I  have  under 
scored,  he  changes  the  entire  character  of  the  sentiment  ad 
vanced.  As  now  stated,  nobody  can  dissent  from  it ;  for  who 
would  announce,  in  a  distinct  proposition,  that  he  would  use 
lessly  do  any  thing  ?  But,  as  originally  stated,  nobody  can 
assent  to  it.  This  alteration  of  his  language,  after  my  criti 
cism  upon  it  was  made,  is  not  only  unjust  towards  me,  but  it 
contains  a  latent  confession  that  he  knew  he  was  wrong,  but 
thought  this  surreptitious  changing  of  his  doctrine  to  be  a  less 
evil  than  a  frank  acknowledgment  of  his  error.  Had  he 
truly  quoted  the  original  false  sentiment,  the  world  would 
have  seen  that  I  was  right ;  but,  in  his  dilemma,  he  falsely 
interpolated  a  true  sentiment,  not  only  to  evade  the  force 
of  my  criticism  upon  him,  but  to  make  occasion  for  an  un 
founded  imputation  against  me. 

I  shall  not  undertake  to  define  or  describe  a  proceeding  like 
this  in  words  of  my  own.  But  I  may  be  permitted,  without 
discourtesy,  to  use  a  sentiment  advanced  by  himself,  and 
leave  its  application  to  be  made  by  its  author.  It  is  in  the 
same  connection  that  Mr.  Webster  makes  the  following  re 
mark  :  "  I  know  no  passion  more  appropriate  to  devils  than 
the  passion  for  gross  misrepresentation  and  libel."  Can  any 
mortal  specify  a  grosser  instance  of  "  gross  misrepresentation 
and  libel"  than  when  one  of  the  parties  to  a  public  discussion 
has  uttered  an  obnoxious  sentiment,  and  when  this  sentiment 
has  met  with  very  general  reprobation,  and  when,  in  the 
progress  of  the  discussion,  the  guilty  party  professes  to  re- 


317 

state  the  case,  that  he  should  then  expunge  the  false  sentiment 
he  originally  advanced,  foist  a  trite  and  common-place  one  in 
its  stead,  then  apply  the  criticism  made  on  the  suppressed 
sentiment  to  the  forged  one,  and  proceed  to  condemn  his 
critic  for  "  nonsense  "  or  "  dishonesty  "  1  Is  it  not  as  palpa 
ble  a  case  of  alteration,  as  to  change  the  date  of  a  note  of 
hand  in  order  to  take  it  out  of  the  statute  of  limitations,  or  to 
obliterate  the  description  of  the  premises  in  a  deed,  and  put  a 
more  valuable  estate  in  its  place  ?  This  proceeding  is  worse, 
if  possible,  than  the  former  "  misrepresentation  and  libel "  of 
my  argument  and  myself,  contained  in  the  Newburyport 
letter.  But  the  subject  is  painful,  and  I  leave  it. 

2.  Following  up  his  attack  upon  me,  Mr.  Webster  proceeds 
to  say  : 

"  In  classical  times,  there  was  a  set  of  small  but  rapacious  critics, 
denominated  captatores  verborum,  who  snatched  and  caught  at  partic 
ular  expressions  ;  expended  their  strength  on  the  disjecta  membra  of 
language  ;  birds  of  rapine  which  preyed  on  words  and  syllables,  and 
gorged  themselves  with  feeding  on  the  garbage  of  phrases,  chopped, 
dislocated,  and  torn  asunder  by  themselves,  as  flesh  and  limbs  are  by 
the  claws  of  unclean  birds." 

May  I  most  respectfully  ask  Mr.  Webster  on  what  au 
thority  he  says  there  was,  "  in  classical  times,"  any  such 
44  set "  of  "  small  but  rapacious  critics,"  as  he  here  speaks  of 
—  or  exemplifies?  In  my  ignorance,  I  have  always  sup 
posed  the  "  captator "  of  classical  times,  to  be  a  kind  of 
"genius"  the  very  opposite  of  what  Mr.  Webster  describes. 
Horace,  Juvenal,  and  Livy  represent  him  as  a  selfish,  syco 
phantic  gift-seeker,  or  fortune-hunter  ;  not  a  twister,  torturer, 
or  interpolator,  even,  of  words  and  phrases.  If  captator 
meant  a  cavilling,  cynical  critic,  then  captatrix  should  mean 
a  scold,  a  vixen,  or  virago  ;  but  its  true  meaning  was  4<  a 
fawning  gossip,"  or  "  mean  flatterer." 

No  mistake  could  well  be  greater  than  that  the  old  capta 
tores  "  expended  their  strength  on  the  disjecta  membra  of 
language,"  or  "  gorged  themselves  with  the  garbage  of 
phrases,  chopped,  dislocated,  and  torn  asunder,  by  them 
selves."  On  the  contraiy,  they  were  "  gentle  as  a  sucking 
dove."  The  accompanying  words  descriptive  of  the  "  cap 
tator  "  were  not  torvc,  ringi,  and  so  forth  ;  but  collide,  blande, 
or  Wandicule.  There  was  nothing  like  the  harpy  about  them, 
27* 


318 

as  Mr.  Webster  seems  to  suppose,  in  this  remarkable  descrip 
tion  of  his,  which  is  as  rhetorically  unsavory  as  it  is  classi 
cally  untrue. 

So  far  from  there  being  any  "set"  of  critics,  in  classic 
times,  denominated  and  known  as  captatores  verborum,  I 
doubt  whether  even  the  abstract  noun  "  captatio "  occurs 
half  a  dozen  times,  in  all  the  classics,  in  connection  with  the 
genitive  of  his  pretended  appellation.  He  could  hardly  have 
made  a  greater  or  more  ludicrous  mistake.  It  is  exceedingly 
to  be  regretted,  after  the  numerous  instances  we  have  lately 
had  of  Mr.  Webster's  bad  logic,  and  bad  humanity,  and  bad 
discoveries  of  natural  law,  that  he  should  now  offend  the 
classical  taste  of  the  country,  and  bring  discredit  upon  the 
New  England  colleges,  by  his  bad  Latin.  This  whole  anti- 
classical  paragraph  about  "  disjecta  membra"  and  "  chop 
ping,"  and  "  gorging,"  and  "  uncleanness,"  is  an  unclean 
conception  of  his  own ;  not  a  pure  but  an  impure  invention, 
and  seems  more  epigastric  than  intellectual  in  its  origin.* 

3.  I  will  now  give  a  specimen  or  two  of  Mr.  Webster's 
errors  in  geography,  and  of  his  false  citation  of  authorities. 
It  will  then  be  seen  that  his  geographical  statements  are 
worthy  to  be  placed  side  by  side  with  his  classical.  In  the 
same  letter,  he  says  the  extent  of  New  Mexico,  north  and 
south,  on  the  line  of  the  Rio  Grande,  "  can  hardly  be  less 
than  a  thousand  miles."  This  makes  a  little  more  than 
fourteen  degrees  of  latitude.  Now,  as  its  northern  boundary 
is  in  42°,  its  southern  must  be  as  low  as  28°.  This  is  four 
degrees  below  El  Paso  del  Norte.  Yet  Mr.  Webster,  on  the 

*  The  above  criticism  on  Mr.  Webster's  latinity  aroused  many 
self-supposed  scholars,  or  at  least  fair  proficients  in  the  Latin  gram 
mar,  to  take  up  the  pen  in  his  defence.  But  unluckily,  the  quills 
they  seized  were  plucked,  not  from  the  Roman  eagle,  but  from  the 
wings  of  some  of  those  "  unclean  birds,"  to  which  Mr.  Webster  had 
introduced  them.  Among  the  most  conspicuous  of  these  defenders  of 
Mr.  Webster's  ludicrous  blunder,  was  Professor  Felton,  of  Harvard 
College.  If  any  person  wishes  to  see  one  of  the  most  neat,  elegant, 
and  at  the  same  time  thorough  cases  of  deplumation,  any  where  to  be 
found  in  literary  history,  in  which  an  individual  who  strutted  on  to 
the  stage  as  a  peacock,  was  soon  obliged  to  leave  it  as  a  daw,  he  has 
only  to  read  Dr.  Beck's  articles  in  "  The  Literary  World,"  in  which 
the  fabricated  quotation  of  Mr.  Webster,  and  Professor  Felton's  de 
fence  of  it,  are  shown  to  be  exceedingly  bad  as  Latin,  and  much  worse 
us  logic. 


319 

13th  of  June  last,  declared  himself  in  favor  of  fixing  the 
northern  boundary  of  Texas  at  or  near  El  Paso,  and  more 
than  four  degrees  of  latitude  north  of  what  he  here  says  is 
the  southern  boundary  of  New  Mexico.  He  also  supported 
that  part  of  the  compromise  bill  which  proposes  to  give  Texas, 
not  only  these  four  degrees  of  latitude,  but  millions  of  money 
also,  for  taking  what,  as  he  now  says,  belongs  to  New  Mexico 
and  the  United  States.  How  can  these  views  stand  together  ? 

In  his  7th  of  March  speech,  Mr.  Webster  declared  it  to  be 
a  natural  impossibility  that  African  slavery  could  ever  exist 
"  in  California  or  New  Mexico."  (p.  42.)  He  now  defines 
the  southern  boundary  of  New  Mexico.  It  can  hardly  be  less, 
says  he,  than  "  a  thousand  miles  "  from  the  forty-second  de 
gree  of  north  latitude.  This  places  it  four  degrees  south  of 
El  Paso.  He  is  in  favor  of  that  part  of  the  bill  which  gives 
these  four  degrees  to  Texas.  According  to  him,  therefore, 
should  Texas  get  possession  of  these  four  degrees  of  what 
is  now  New  Mexican  territory,  slavery  will  exist,  as  far  up 
as  the  old  southern  boundary  line  of  New  Mexico,  by  vir 
tue  of  the  laws  of  Texas,  but  beyond  this  line,  although  within 
the  bounds  of  Texas,  it  will  not  exist,  because  forbidden  by 
the  "  will  of  God."  Hence  the  extraordinary  spectacle  will 
be  exhibited,  of  the  existence  of  slavery  coming  plump  up  to 
the  south  side  of  an  imaginary  line,  by  the  laws  of  Texas, 
while  on  the  north  side  of  the  said  imaginary  line,  its  existence 
will  be  cut  square  off  by  the  "  will  of  God,"  although  both 
sides  are  within  the  same  political  jurisdiction.  This  will  be 
a  miracle,  compared  with  which  the  supposed  miraculous 
preservation  of  the  Jewish  feature  and  complexion,  for  two 
thousand  years,  will  be  unworthy  to  be  mentioned.  It  re 
mains  to  be  seen,  however,  whether  this  miracle  will  be  vouch 
safed  to  Mr.  Webster,  as  a  proof  of  the  divine  favor. 

On  the  5th  of  June,  Mr.  Webster  voted  against  incorporat 
ing  the  "  Proviso"  into  the  governments  for  New  Mexico  and 
Utah,  because  slavery  was  already  prohibited  there  by 
"  Asiatic  scenery  "  and  the  law  of  "  physical  geography/' 
On  the  next  day,  too,  he  voted  against  the  following  amend 
ment,  offered  by  Mr.  Walker  :  "  And  that  peon  servitude  is 
forever  abolished  and  prohibited."  Whether  he  so  voted  be 
cause  this  species  of  slavery,  (which  is  an  existing  institution 
at  the  present  time,)  was  prohibited  by  "  scenery "  and 
"  geography,"  does  not  appear. 


320 

But  on  the  17th  of  June,  Mr.  Webster,  in  the  Senate,  sug 
gested  a  qualification  of  his  doctrine  as  laid  down  on  the  7th 
of  March,  viz.,  that  "  every  foot  of  territory  of  the  United 
States  has  a  fixed  character  for  slavery."  An  uncertainty  as 
to  the  boundary  line  between  New  Mexico  and  Texas,  gave 
rise  to  this  qualification.  u  Let  me  say  to  gentlemen,"  said 
Mr.  Webster,  "  that  if  any  portion  which  they  or  I  do  not  be 
lieve  to  be  Texas,  should  be  considered  to  become  Texas, 
then,  so  far,  that  qualification  of  my  remark  is  applicable." 
(Cong.  Globe,  31st  Cong.,  1st  session,  p.  1239.)  That  is,  if 
the  compromise  bill  should  so  establish  the  boundary  line  be 
tween  New  Mexico  and  Texas,  as  that  "  any  portion  [of  New 
Mexico]  which  they  or  I  [other  gentlemen  or  Mr.  Webster,] 
do  not  believe  to  be  Texas,  should  be  considered  to  become 
Texas,"  then  as  Texan  territory,  it  might  lose  its  "  fixed 
character,"  and  become  slave  territory,  notwithstanding  the 
"  ordinance  of  Nature  "  and  the  "  will  of  God,"  to  the  con 
trary.  But,  strange  to  say,  on  this  same  17th  of  June,  the 
Kennebec  letter  was  written,  which  carries  the  southern 
boundary  of  Mexico,  on  the  east  side  of  the  Rio  Grande,  four 
degrees  below  El  Paso,  and,  of  course,  includes  all  that  re 
gion  within  New  Mexico,  and  therefore  within  the  "ordinance 
of  Nature  "  and  the  "  will  of  God  !  "  So  that,  after  all,  he 
acknowledges  that  the  "  ordinance  of  Nature  "  and  the  "  will 
of  God,"  as  he  expounds  them,  may  be  overridden  by  the 
laws  of  Texas  ;  —  in  which  view  he  is  undoubtedly  right. 

But  his  citation  of  authorities  is  among  the  most  surprising 
of  all  his  aberrations  from  fact.  Fie  first  quotes  Major 
Gaines,  who,  as  he  says,  "  traversed  a  part  of  this  country 
during  the  Mexican  war."  By  "  this  country,"  I  suppose  he 
means  New  Mexico.  If  he  does  not  mean  New  Mexico,  then 
the  citation  has  no  relation  to  the  subject.  If  he  does  mean 
New  Mexico,  then  he  asserts  what  is  untrue.  Major  Gaines 
did  not  go  within  four  or  five  hundred  miles  of  New  Mexico 
during  the  war ;  and  if  the  quotation  from  him  was  designed 
to  create  the  belief  that,  in  what  Major  Gaines  said,  he  was 
speaking  of  New  Mexico,  it  was  as  gross  an  imposition  as 
could  well  be  made. 

The  next  citation  is  from  Colonel  Hardin.  Two  sentences 
are  taken.  I  transcribe  the  first  with  Mr.  Webster's  italics. 


321 

"  The  whole  country  is  miserably  watered;  large  districts  have  no  water 
at  all.  The  streams  are  small,  and  at  great  distances  apart.  One  day 
we  marched  on  the  road  from  Monclova  to  Parras,  thirty-five  miles, 
without  icater ;  a  pretty  severe  day's  march  for  infantry." 

And  what  country  does  this  describe  ? 

"  From  Monclova  to  Parras,  thirty-five  miles " !  says 
Colonel  Hardin.  And  where  is  Monclova  ?  Away  down 
south,  in  Coahuila,  hundreds  of  miles  from  any  part  of  New 
Mexico. 

I  submit  the  following  notes,  one  from  the  colonel  of  the 
regiment  in  which  Mr.  Gaines  was  a  major ;  and  the  other 
from  a  major  in  the  regiment  of  which  Mr.  Hardin  was  colonel. 
Both  letters  are  from  gentlemen  who  are  now  members  of 
Congress. 

HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES,  June  27,  1850. 

SIR  ;  In  reply  to  your  note  of  this  date,  I  state  that  Major  Gaines 
did  not,  during  the  Mexican  war,  travel  though  any  part  of  New 
Mexico.  Major  Gaines  entered  Mexico  at  Camargo,  on  the  Rio 
Grande  ;  was  engaged  near  Saltillo,  until  he  was  captured  and  taken 
to  the  city  of  Mexico ;  and  thence  he  returned  to  the  United  States 
by  the  way  of  Vera  Cruz. 
'I  am,  sir,  very  respectfully,  &c.,  HUMPHREY  MARSHALL. 

P.  S.  In  reply  to  your  verbal  inquiry,  whether  Colonel  Hardin  was 
in  New  Mexico,  I  state,  that  Colonel  Hardin  was  attached  to  General 
Wool's  command,  and  passed  from  San  Antonio  de  Bexar,  by  the 
Presidio  de  Rio  Grande,  Monclova,  and  Parras,  to  Saltillo  ;  so  that  he 
did  not  enter  New  Mexico.  H.  M. 

Hon.  H.  MANN. 

HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES,  June  23,  1850. 

HON.  H.  MANN.  SIR;  In  reply  to  your  note  of  this  date,  I  have 
the  honor  to  say,  that  I  was  an  officer  of  the  first  regiment,  Illinois 
volunteers,  commanded  by  Colonel  J.  J.  Hardin,  during  the  Mexican 
war,  and  that  during  the  time  Colonel  Hardin  was  in  command  of  the 
regiment  he  was  not  in  New  Mexico.  His  nearest  point  to  New 
Mexico  was  Monclova  or  Parras,  which  was  several  hundred  miles 
distant.  In  my  opinion,  Colonel  Hardin  was  never  in  New  Mexico ; 
he  certainly  was  not  in  that  country  during  the  Mexican  war. 

Respectfully,  W.  A.  RICHARDSON. 

Now  what  possible  excuse  can  be  offered  for  these  mis 
leading  citations  ?  What  information  would  be  given  of  the 
soil  of  the  Genesee  valley  of  New  York,  by  proving  the  con 
dition  of  the  sands  of  Cape  Cod  ? 

Mr.  Webster  next  quotes,  for  the  second  time,  the  letter  of 
Hugh  N.  Smith,  Esq.  This  letter,  if  taken  by  itself,  would 
render  it  improbable,  in  Mr.  Smith's  opinion,  that  slavery 


322 

would  go  into  Now  Mexico  ;  but  it  by  no  means  proves  the 
physical  impossibility  of  its  existence  there.  But  what  differ 
ent  language  has  Mr.  Smith  since  held  in  his  address  to  his 
constituents  in  New  Mexico  itself?  I  will  quote  a  few  pas 
sages  from  this  address  to  show  its  general  drift  and  intent. 

"  Your  state,  [New  Mexico,]  is  threatened  with  dismemberment,  and 
what  is  yet  more  fatal,  the  introduction  of  slavery  into  its  bosom."  (p.  1.) 

"  The  most  formidable  part  of  this  combination  against  you  is  that 
which  originates  in  the  slave  interest.  It  not  only  rallies  against  you 
the  whole  slaveholding  south,  but  all  the  influence  of  selfish,  venal, 
and  ambitious  men  in  the  north,  looking  to  speculations  in  discredited 
bonds  and  land  jobbing,  or  to  the  political  honors  which  the  combined  vote 
of  the  south  may  promise."  (p.  2.) 

"  The  doctrine  of  the  slaveholding  states,  in  regard  to  their  domes 
tic  institutions,  is  non-intervention  ;  but  with  regard  to  yours,  it  is 
instant  intervention,  to  set  at  nought  the  prohibition  of  slavery,  which 
you  brought  with  you  into  the  Union,"  &c.  Ib. 

"  I  am  myself  a  native  of  the  section,  [Mr.  Smith  is  a  Kentxickian,] 
whose  fate  I  deplore,  and  if  my  duty  did  not  require,  I  would  be  the 

last  to  advert  to  the  malady  that  preys  upon  its  life The 

schemes  of  those  who  would  bind  you  to  the  destiny  of  the  slave 
states,  render  it  necessary  that  your  representative  should  be  excluded 
from  the  halls  of  Congress."  (p.  3.) 

"  You  are  left  prostrate,  that  Texas  may  dismember  and  divide  New 
Mexico,  and  subject  her  to  southern  influence  ;  that  negro  slavery  may  be  in 
troduced  into  the  remnant  of  territory  that  may  not  be  appropriated  to 
Texas  ;  and,  finally,  that  the  region  thus  secured  to  southern  policy  may 
become  the  stock  on  which  to  graft  new  conquests  from  Mexico"  (p.  4.) 
[These  are  Mr.  Smith's  italics.] 

"  The  first  step  in  this  process  is  to  supplant  the  fundamental  mu 
nicipal  institutions  brought  by  New  Mexico  with  her  into  the  TJnion, 
by  a  territorial  government,  which,  by  omitting  the  inhibition  against 
slavery  in  the  Congressional  act,  failing  to  reserve  that  contained  in 
the  Mexican  code,  and  preventing  the  people  of  the  territory  from 
legislating  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  from  reenacting  the  pro 
hibitory  clause,  will  unquestionably  abolish  all  protections  against 
that  institution  ;  and,  indeed,  more  effectual  legislation  for  the  exten 
sion  of  slavery  into  New  Mexico  could  not  be  enacted."  (p.  5.) 

"The  whole  body  of  southern  influence,  now  that  mining  is  a 
mania,  would  combine  to  pour  an  immense  colony  of  slaves  into  New 
Mexico.  The  consequence  of  this  would  be  to  level  the  whole  popu 
lation  of  New  Mexico  with  the  new  caste  brought  into  competition  ; 
and  you,  my  Mexican  fellow-citi/.ens,  who  till  your  own  soil  with  your 
own  hands,  would  be  compelled  to  fly  your  country,  or  be  degraded 
from  your  equality  of  freemen,  forfeiting  your  hopes  of  rising  to  the 
new  elevation  promised  by  your  alliance  with  the  great  North  Amer 
ican  republic,  and  living  only  to  witness  the  ruin  of  all  that  renders 
Hfe  desirable."  (p.  0.) 


323 

This  is  what  Mr.  Smith  says,  when  ho  writes  home  to  his 
own  people,  who  know  all  about  their  own  country,  and  its 
danger  of  being  invaded  by  slavery. 

Now,  let  the  reader  suppose  himself  to  have  read  from  Mr. 
Smith's  address,  as  much  more  of  the  same  kind  as  the  above, 
and  then  say  how  far  his  evidence  goes  to  sustain  Mr.  Web 
ster's  discovery,  that  slavery  can  never  go  into  New  Mexico. 
Mr.  Smith's  address  has  been  published  for  two  months ;  it 
has  been  on  the  tables  of  members,  published,  and  quoted 
from  in  the  newspapers,  and  yet  Mr.  Webster  continues  to 
cite  Mr.  Smith  as  a  witness  in  his  favor.  What  influences 
were  used  to  induce  Mr.  Smith  to  withhold,  in  the  letter  to 
Mr.  Webster,  the  facts  and  views  which  he  has  so  clearly 
brought  out  in  the  letter  to  his  constituents  ? 

The  next  and  last  citation  is  from  an  officer  at  Santa  Fe. 
No  name  is  given.  We  are  informed  neither  of  the  character 
of  the  author  nor  of  his  means  of  information  ;  and  if  this 
authority  is  as  fallacious  and  deceptive  as  the  preceding,  it  is 
a  great  deal  worse  than  nothing.  It  would  be  like  the  testi 
mony  sometimes  offered  in  court,  which  ruins  the  cause  and 
dishonors  the  counsel. 

4.  In  his  Kennebec  letter,  Mr.  Webster  says,  "  I  have 
studied  the  geography  of  New  Mexico  diligently,  having  read 
all  that  I  could  find  in  print,  and  inquired  of  many  intelligent 
persons,  who  have  been  in  the  country,  traversed  it,  and  be 
come  familiar  with  it."  He  sets  forth  his  knowledge  in  this 
confident  tone,  so  that  his  impressions  in  favor  of  the  natural 
prohibition  of  slavery  may  be  more  readily  received.  Ac 
cording  to  this  statement,  he  must  have  read  the  letters  of 
Mr.  James  S.  Calhoun,  Indian  agent  at  Santa  Fe.  communica 
ted  to  Congress  by  the  President,  on  the  23d  of  January  last. 
Speaking  of  the  Navajoes,  a  tribe  of  7,000  Indians,  within  the 
limits  of  what  it  is  proposed  to  include  in  New  Mexico,  Mr. 
Calhoun  says,  that  it  is  "  not  a  rare  instance  for  one  individual 
to  possess  5,000  to  10,000  sheep,  and  400  to  500  head  of 
other  stock,"  (p.  184  ;)  and  that  their  country  "  is  rich  in  its 
valleys,  rich  in  its  fields  of  grain,  and  rich  in  its  vegetables 
and  peach  orchards."  (p.  199.)  "  We  encamped,"  says  he, 
"  near  extensive  cornfields,  belonging  to  the  Navajoes." 
(p.  197.)  Their  "  soil  is  easy  of  cultivation,  and  capable  of 
sustaining  nearly  as  many  millions  of  inhabitants  as  they  have 


thousands."  (p.  202.)  Look  at  this  :  A  country  owned  by  one 
tribe  capable,  according  to  Mr.  Calhoun,  of  sustaining  nearly 
7,000,000  inhabitants,  and  yet,  as  Mr.  Webster  avers,  in 
accessible  to  slavery,  on  account  of  its  barrenness  ! 

Speaking  of  the  Indians,  (Pueblos,)  on  the  Rio  Grande,  Mr. 
Calhoun  says,  "  These  people  can  raise  immense  quantities 
of  corn  and  wheat,  and  have  large  herds  of  sheep  and  goats. 
The  grazing  for  cattle  generally  is  superior."  (p.  206.)  Of 
the  more  western  Pueblos,  he  says,  they  have  "  an  extent  of 
country  nearly  four  hundred  miles  square  "  ;  —  more  than 
twenty  times  as  large  as  Massachusetts  ;  —  "  they  have  rich 
valleys  to  cultivate,  grow  quantities  of  corn  and  wheat,  and 
raise  vast  herds  of  horses,  mules,  sheep,  and  goats,  all  of 
which  may  be  immensely  increased  by  properly  stimulating 
their  industry,  and  instructing  them  in  the  agricultural  arts." 
(p.  215.) 

I  might  cite  much  more  from  the  same  authority,  to  the 
same  effect ;  but  I  do  not  refer  to  Mr.  Calhoun  so  much  for 
the  purpose  of  showing  the  agricultural  capabilities  of  New 
Mexico,  as  of  asking  why  Mr.  Webster  did  not  quote  from 
this  recent  official  work,  which  has  been  lying  on  the  tables 
of  members  for  months,  instead  of  quoting  descriptions  from 
military  officers  respecting  a  country  which  he  well  knew 
they  had  never  seen  ? 

There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  there  are  wide  tracts  of 
fertile  land  lying  between  the  Sierra  de  los  Mimbres  and  the 
Sierra  Nevada,  on  the  east  and  west,  and  the  32d  and  35th 
degrees  of  latitude.  The  waters  at  the  mouth  of  a  river  give 
no  doubtful  indication  respecting  the  country  from  which  they 
flow.  If  the  volume  be  large,  we  know  it  must  drain  an  ex 
tensive  region  ;  for  the  waters  of  a  great  river  cannot  be  sup 
plied  from  a  narrow  surface.  So  if  the  water  be  muddy,  as 
is  said  to  be  the  case  with  that  of  the  Colorado,  it  is  proof 
that  it  courses  through  a  diluvial  country.  But  however  this 
may  be,  all  accounts  concur  in  representing  New  Mexico  to 
be  rich  in  mines ;  and  mines  are  the  favorite  sphere  for 
slavery,  as  the  ocean  is  for  commerce. 

In  his  late  speech  in  the  Senate,  Mr.  Davis,  of  Massachu 
setts,  said,  that  however  it  might  be  with  regard  to  employing 
slaves  in  New  Mexico  for  raising  crops  of  corn  or  cotton, 
there  was  still  one  purpose  to  which  they  might  be  applied, — 


325 

the  most  odious  of  all  purposes, —  to  raising  crops  from  them 
selves.  From  this  "  Southern  Hive,"  the  markets  of  Texas 
and  Louisiana  might  be  supplied  with  "  vigintial  "  crops  of 
human  beings.  It  will  be  incumbent  on  Mr.  \\  ebster  to  invent 
some  new  "  physical  "  law  to  meet  this  astute  suggestion  of 
his  colleague.  "  Asiatic  scenery "  will  hardly  answer  his 
purpose  here. 

Within  the  limits  of  the  proposed  territory  of  New  Mexico, 
it  is  said,  on  the  authority  of  Humboldt,  that  that  powerful  and 
comparatively  civilized  people,  the  Aztecs,  once  resided.  Can 
any  person  for  a  moment  believe  that  the  Aztecs  ever  grew 
to  opulence  and  power,  in  any  such  sterile  and  desolate  region, 
as  Mr.  Webster's  "  diligent  reading1'  portrays? 

But  what  must  satisfy  every  man  whose  blindness  is  not  of 
the  soul  rather  than  of  the  senses,  is  the  fact  that  the  people 
of  New  Mexico,  in  the  constitution  which  they  have  just 
framed,  have  embodied  a  prohibition  of  slavery  in  their  fun 
damental  law.  Had  slavery  been  forbidden  there  by  any 
"  Asiatic  scenery,"  or  by  any  "  law  of  physical  geography," 
who  should  know  it  better  than  they  ?  They  have  had 
slavery  amongst  them  heretofore,  and  therefore  they  know  it 
can  invade  them  again,  and  therefore  they  forbid  it  ;  and  in 
the  choice  of  senators  to  Congress  under  the  new  organiza 
tion,  should  any  candidate  put  forward  the  vagary,  the  phan 
tasm,  the  fatuity,  that  slavery  cannot  exist  among  them,  they 
would  doubtless  deem  him  a  less  fit  subject  for  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States  than  for  sanitary  treatment. 

How  stands  the  evidence,  then,  on  the  question,  whether 
"  California  and  New  Mexico,"  from  their  geology,  their  ge 
ography,  or  their  Asiatic  scenery,  are  inaccessible  or  not,  to 
the  invasion  of  slavery  ?  It  is  well  known  that  the  war  with 
Mexico  was  provoked,  and  violently  precipitated  upon  the 
country,  in  order  to  extend  the  domain  and  the  power  of 
slavery.  In  negotiating  for  the  cession  of  California  and  New 
Mexico,  the  Mexican  commissioners  strove  to  introduce  a  pro 
hibition  against  slavery  into  the  treaty.  This  demonstrates 
that  they  thought  slavery  could  exist  there.  Our  minister  de 
clared  that  he  would  assent  to  no  such  stipulation,  though  they 
would  cover  all  the  land  a  foot  thick  with  gold.  This  shows 
the  tenacity  with  which  Mr.  Folk's  administration,  and  all  its 
southern  friends,  adhered  to  their  original  purpose  of  obtain- 
28 


326 

ing  new  territory  for  slavery.  In  view  of  this,  the  House  of 
Representatives  again  and  again  voted  to  apply  the  proviso  to 
whatever  territory  should  be  obtained.  When  the  treaty  was 
ratified,  many  of  the  leading  senators  voted  against  the  clause 
for  acquisition,  foreseeing  the  present  controversy,  and  hoping 
to  avert  it.  Even  after  the  treaty  was  ratified,  leading 
southern  Whigs  in  the  House  voted  against  paying  the  first 
instalment  under  it,  still  clinging  to  the  hope  that  the  territory 
might  be  restored  to  Mexico,  and  this  cause  of  dissension 
withdrawn.  During  all  this  period,  fourteen  of  the  northern 
legislatures,  many  of  them  again  and  again,  voted  that  the 
proviso  should  be  applied.  The  present  six  months1  contest, 
in  the  Senate  and  House,  between  the  north  and  the  south,  is 
conducted  solely  on  the  conviction  that  slavery  may  exist  in 
the  territories  ;  and  that  it  will  or  will  not  exist  there,  accord 
ing  as  the  law  allows  or  forbids  it.  Otherwise  it  would  be  the 
most  nonsensical  and  nugatory  discussion  ever  engaged  in  out 
of  a  lunatic  asylum.  Once  make  it  as  clear  as  any  law  of 
physical  nature,  that  slavery  can  never  transgress  the  bounds 
of  the  new  territories,  and  there  is  not  a  man  so  demented 
that  he  would  any  longer  contend  either  for  the  proviso,  or 
against  it.  Mr.  Webster  was  always  of  the  same  opinion,  and 
has  declared  it  a  hundred  times.  In  his  Marshfield  speech, 
September  1,  1848,  he  said,  "He  [General  Cass]  will  surely 
have  the  Senate,  and  with  the  patronage  of  the  government, 
with  every  interest  that  he,  as  a  northern  man,  can  bring  to 
bear,  cooperating  with  every  interest  that  the  south  can  bring 
to  bear,  we  cry  safety  before  we  are  out  of  the  woods,  if  we 
feel  that  there  is  no  danger  [of  slavery]  as  to  these  new  territo 
ries."  Up  to  the  7th  of  March,  1850,  then,  when  he  abandoned 
all  the  doctrines  and  sentiments  he  had  ever  before  advocated 
on  this  subject,  and  when  he  incurred  the  public,  hearty  ap 
proval  and  encomiums  of  Mr.  Calhoun,  by  his  moral  agility  in 
springing,  at  one  leap,  from  Massachusetts  to  South  Carolina  ; 
—  until  this  time,  Mr.  Webster  had  always  held,  that  slavery 
would  invade  the  new  territories  if  not  barred  out  of  them  by 
positive  law.  And  what  would  be  still  more  remarkable,  if 
the  doctrines  of  the  7th  of  March  speech  had  the  least  shad 
ow  of  soundness  in  them,  is,  that  they  have  now  been  before 
the  public  for  more  than  four  months,  and,  so  far  as  I  know, 
not  a  single  southern  man  has  been  converted  by  them.  Are 


327 

not  Mr.  Bcnton,  Mr.  Mason,  Colonel  Davis,  and  thousands  of 
others,  individually,  as  good  judges,  or  as  good  witnesses,  as 
he  is  ?  Since  the  speech,  the  people  of  New  Mexico  have 
prohibited  slavery  in  their  constitution,  because  they  knew  it 
to  be  possible  among  them.  Before  the  speech,  California 
did  the  same,  and  for  the  same  reason.  The  Nashville  con 
vention  has  just  resolved,  "  That  California  is  peculiarly 
adapted  for  slave  labor,  and  that  if  the  tenure  of  slave  prop 
erty  was  by  recognition  of  this  kind  secured  in  that  part  of 
the  country  south  of  36°  30',  it  would  in  a  short  time  form 
one  or  more  slaveholding  states,  to  swell  the  number  and 
power  of  those  already  in  existence."  Even  those  who  seek 
to  apologize  for  Mr.  Webster,  avow,  at  the  same  time,  their 
disbelief  in  his  doctrine.  Such  is  the  evidence,  on  the  one 
side  and  on  the  other,  as  to  the  possibility  or  impossibility  of 
slavery  in  the  territories.  Mr.  Webster  is  against  the  whole 
world,  and  the  whole  world  is  against  him,  and  this,  too,  on  a 
question  already  settled  by  history  and  experience.  He  is 
just  as  much  to  be  believed,  as  a  man  who  looks  up  into  the 
clear  midnight  sky,  and  denies  the  existence  of  the  heavenly 
host,  while  all  the  stars  of  the  firmament  are  shining  down 
into  his  eyes. 

To  increase  the  overwhelming  proof  against  Mr.  Webster, 
I  add  the  following  :  — 

HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES,  June  1,  1850. 
HON.  S.  R.  THURSTON,  Delegate  from  Oregon. 

DEAR  SIR  ;  In  a  speech  delivered  by  you,  in  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  in  March  last,  I  understood  you  to  say  that  you  had  been 
in  the  valley  of  the  Great  Salt  Lake,  and  that  you  were  acquainted, 
from  personal  observation,  with  a  large  part  of  the  territory  of  Cali 
fornia.  "Will  you  be  so  good  as  to  give  me  your  opinion,  and  the 
reasons  for  entertaining  it,  of  the  probability  or  improbability  of  the 
introduction  of  slave  labor  into  any  part  of  the  territory  recently 
acquired  by  the  United  States  from  Mexico ;  provided  such  introduc 
tion  be  not  prohibited  by  law. 

I  wish  to  obtain  your  opinion  in  regard  to  other  kinds  of  labor,  as 
well  as  agricultural ;  because,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  most  unwarranta 
ble,  if  not  a  most  disingenuous  attempt  has  been  made,  to  lead  the 
public  to  believe  that  no  form  of  slave  labor  will  ever  be  introduced 
there,  because,  possibly,  or  probably,  it  may  not  be  introduced  for 
agricultural  purposes. 

A  reply  at  your  earliest  convenience  will  much  oblige 
Yours,  very  truly, 

HORACE  MANN. 


328 

WASHINGTON,  June  10,  1850. 
HON.  HORACE  MANN  ; 

I  received  a  note  from  you  some  days  ago,  making  certain  inqui 
ries,  but  which,  up  to  this  time,  I  have  been  unable  to  answer.  I 
desire  to  take  no  part  in  the  question  now  dividing  the  country  ;  but 
as  you  have  asked  my  judgment  upon  a  matter  which  appears  to  be 
a  disputed  point,  I  cannot,  consistently  with  the  law  of  courtesy, 
refuse  you  an  answer.  That  answer  will  be  in  conformity  with  what 
I  have  frequently  said,  heretofore,  in  private  conversation  with  gen 
tlemen  on  this  subject. 

The  point  of  inquiry  seems  to  be,  whether  slave  labor  could  be 
profitably  employed  in  Oregon,  California,  Utah,  and  New  Mexico. 
If  the  nature  of  the  climate  and  resources  of  these  countries  are 
such  as  to  furnish  a  profitable  market  for  slave  labor,  it  appears  to  be 
conceded,  on  all  sides,  that  it  would  be  introduced,  if  left  free  to  seek 
profitable  investment,  like  other  capital.  The  whole  point  at  issue, 
then,  is  dependent,  as  it  is  conceived,  upon  the  determination  of  the 
first  point  of  inquiry.  Hence,  to  that  point,  only,  it  is  necessary  for 
me  to  confine  my  answer. 

I  need  not  remind  you  of  the  law  regulating  the  investment  of 
capital.  It  will  always  go  where,  under  all  circumstances,  it  will 
yield  the  greatest  return  to  the  owner.  Upon  this  principle  I  am 
very  clear,  that  slave  labor,  if  unrestricted,  could  be  employed  in 
Oregon,  with  at  least  double  the  profit  to  the  owner  of  the  slave  that 
it  now  yields  in  any  state  of  the  Union.  I  am  uninformed  as  to  the 
usual  price  of  slave  labor  in  the  states,  but  the  price  paid  to  Indians 
in  Oregon  during  the  past  year,  for  labor,  has  ranged  from  two  to 
three  dollars  per  day.  Domestic  negro  servants,  whether  male  or 
female,  who  understand  the  business  of  housework,  would  command, 
readily,  five  or  six  hundred  dollars  a  year.  I  recollect  well  that  there 
was  a  mulatto  man  on  board  the  vessel  in  which  I  took  passage  from 
Oregon  to  San  Francisco,  who  was  paid  one  hundred  and  eighty  dollars 
per  month  for  his  services  as  cook.  I  will  not  stop  to  particularize 
further,  in  regard  to  the  inducements  Oregon  would  offer  to  unre 
stricted  slave  labor,  but  will  simply  add,  that  a  very  large  number  of 
slaves  might  now  be  employed  in  Oregon  at  annual  wages  sufficiently 
large  to  purchase  their  freedom.  I  think,  therefore,  that  the  point  is 
settled  so  far  as  Oregon  is  concerned,  and  that  slave  labor,  if  it  had 
been  left  free  to  seek  profitable  employment,  would  readily  find  its 
way  to  that  territory. 

As  to  California,  I  am  equally  clear.  California  will  always  be  a 
mining  country,  and  wages  will  range  high.  At  present,  slave  labor 
in  California  would  be  more  profitable  than  in  Oregon.  And  I  have 
always  been  of  the  opinion,  that  wherever  there  is  a  mining  country, 
if  not  in  a  climate  uncongenial  to  slave  labor,  that  species  of  labor 
would  be  profitable.  That  it  would  be  in  the  California  mines,  is 
evident.  A  good  able-bodied  slave  would  have  commanded,  in  Cali 
fornia,  during  the  past  year,  from  eight  to  ten  hundred  dollars  per 
annum.  When  it  is  recollected  that  one  hundred  dollars  per  annum, 
upon  an  average,  is  considered  a  good  compensation  for  their  labor  in 
the  Southern  States,  it  is  idle,  in  my  judgment,  to  contend  that  slaves 
would  not  be  carried  to  the  California  market,  if  protected  by  law. 


Tie  greatest  impediment  which  white  labor  has  to  encounter  in  the 
mines,  is  the  intensity  of  the  heat,  and  the  prevalence  of  bilious  dis 
ease-.  The  one  is  almost  insufferable,  while  the  other  is  pestilential. 
Against  both  of  these  the  negro  is  almost  proof.  Now,  while  white 
labor  is  so  high,  it  is  evident  that  no  one  can  hire  a  white"  laborer, 
except  at  a  rate  that  would  consume  his  profit.  Not  so  with  negro 
labor.  That  species  of  labor  might  be  obtained  for  half  the  amount 
which  you  would  have  to  pay  for  white  labor.  The  result  would  be 
a  profit  alike  to  the  hirer  and  seller  of  slave  labor.  There  is  no 
doubt,  in  my  judgment,  that  almost  any  number  of  slaves  might  be 
hired  out  in  California,  were  the  Avhites  willing  to  allow  it,  at  from 
eight  to  ten  hundred  dollars  a  year.  This  is  pay  so  much  above  what 
their  services  command  in  the  states,  as  to  satisfy  any  one,  that  could 
this  species  of  service  be  protected  in  California,  it  would  rush  to  the 
Pacific  in  almost  any  quantity. 

Let  us  next  turn  our  attention  to  Utah  and  New  Mexico.     I   : 
no  doubt,  from  what  knowledge  I  have  of  those  countries,  t 
will  turn  out  to  be  filled  with  the  richest  mines.     I  clip  th 
ing  from  a  recent  paper,  containing  the  news  from  Texas  ;. 
huah.ua  :  — 

'•  Mr.  James  was  informed,  by  Major  Neighbours  and  Mr.  Lee  Vining, 
th.it  they  had  been  shown  by  Major  Stein,  some  gold  washed  out  by  his 
troops,  on  the  Gila  River,  in  a  short  excursion  to  that  stream. 

"  It  is  repoited,  that,  at  the  copper  mines  above  El  Paso,  there  are 
about  one  hundred  tons  of  pure  copper  lying  upon  the  ground.  This  had 
been  got  out  by  Mexicans,  and  abandoned  when  attacked  by  Indians. 

'•  There  are  at  El  Paso,  in  the  hands  of  different  persons,  several  lar^e 
amounts  of  silver  ore,  taken  from  the  mines  in  that  neighborhood.  With 
guaranties  of  titles  to  lands,  and  protection  from  Indians,  only  a  short 
time  would  elapse  before  all  these  mines  would  be  well  worked,  and  we 
would  have  large  quantities  of  metal  seeking  a  market  through  this  place." 

And  if  you  consult  Fremont's  map,  printed  by  order  of  the  Senate 
in  1848,  you  will  find,  near  the  source  of  one  of  the  branches  of  the 
(jila  llivcr,  "copper  and  gold  mines"  laid  down.  And  if  I  am  not 
greatly  mistaken,  it  will  turn  out  that  the  Mormons  are  in  possession 
of  the  richest  kind  of  mines,  east  of  the  Sierra  Nevada.  It  is  known, 
too,  that  silver  and  copper  mines  have,  for  many  years,  been  worked 
iii  New  Mexico  ;  and  I  am  informed  by  Hugh  N.  Smith,  Esq.,  that 
there  are,  in  that  territory,  gold,  silver,  copper,  lead,  and  zinc  mines 
of  the  richest  quality,  and  that  the  reason  why  they  have  not  latterly 
been  worked  more  extensively  is,  that  it  is  prevented  by  the  incursions 
of  the  Indians.  He  is  of  the  opinion,  and  he  is  borne  out  by  what  his 
tory  we  can  get  on  the  subject,  that  when  these  mines  shall  come  to  be 
explored,  their  wealth  will  turn  out  to  be  enormous.  When  you  have 
once  cast  your  eye  over  the  country  lying  west  of  the  llocky  Moun 
tains,  and  east  of  the  Sierra  Nevada,  and  are  informed  of  the  pecul 
iarity  of  the  gold  bearing  region,  you  at  once  become  convinced  that 
the  United  States  is  in  possession  of  mineral  wealth  so  vast,  that  ages 
will  not  be  able  to  measure  its  extent.  And  when  these  mines  shall 
begin  to  be  developed,  and  their  unquestionable  richness  known, 
population  will  set  that  way,  attended  with  the  usual  consequence ;, 

28* 


330 

high  prices,  and  a  demand  for  labor.  If  slave  labor  is  like  other  cap 
ital,  if  it  will  go  where  it  is  best  paid,  then  we  have  a  right  to  say  it 
will  seek  these  mines,  and  become  a  part  of  the  producing  capital  of 
the  country  where  those  mines  are  located.  That  these  whole  regions 
are  filled  with  rich  mines,  is  little  less  than  certain,  and  that  they  can 
be  profitably  worked  by  slave  labor  is  sure.  Hence,  were  I  a  south 
ern  man,  and  my  property  invested  in  slaves,  I  should  consider  the 
markets  of  New  Mexico,  Utah,  and  California,  for  slave  labor,  worthy 
of  an  honorable  contest  to  secure. 

I  am,  sir,  with  due  consideration,  yours,  truly, 

SAMUEL  K.  THURSTOX. 

5.  The  Kennebec  letter  has  another  most  extraordinary  and 
discreditable  passage.  It  is  near  the  close.  Mr.  Webster 
quotes  from  a  speech  delivered  by  him  in  the  Senate,  March 
23,  1848,  says  it  was  published  in  newspapers  and  circulated 
in  pamphlet  form,  and  that  that  speech  contained  the  same 
doctrines  in  regard  to  the  "  legal  construction  and  effect  of  the 
resolutions"  for  admitting  Texas,  as  are  contained  in  the 
speech  of  the  7th  of  March.  He  says  nobody  complained 
then,  and  he  wonders  that  any  body  should  complain  now. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  such  a  man  as  Mr.  Webster 
should  furnish,  in  the  very  quotation  which  he  offers,  the 
means  of  utterly  confuting  the  assertion  which  he  makes.  I 
suppose  this  can  be  accounted  for  only  on  the  ground,  that  he 
now  occupies  a  position  so  antagonistic  to  that  which  he  has 
abandoned  that  he  can  hardly  refer  to  his  former  views  with 
out  self-impeachment  and  self-conviction.  Let  passages  from 
the  two  speeches  be  placed  side  by  side,  to  show,  not  their 
identity,  but  their  utter  irreconcilability. 

MARCH  23,  1848.  MARCH  7,  1850. 

[A  passage  quoted  by  himself.]  "  I  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  un- 

"  It  shall   be   in   the  power  of  derstood,  to-day,  that,  according 

Congress  hereafter  to  make  four  to  my  view   of  the  matter,  this 

other   new  states    out   of  Texan  government  is  solemnly  pledged  by 

territory."  laio   and   contract   to   create   new 

states  out  of  Texas,"  &c.    (p.  42.) 

The  first  quotation  only  asserts  a  "  power"  in  Congress  to 
create  new  states  ;  the  last  affirms  an  obligation,  "  by  law 
and  contract,"  to  do  so.  How  could  Mr.  Webster  have  ex 
pected  that  this  broad  distinction  between  power  and  duty^ 
between  option  and  obligation,  could  escape  the  attention  of 
his  readers  ? 


331 

But  there  is  another  discrepancy  or  contradiction  still  more 
remarkable : 

MARCH  23,  1848.  MARCH  7,  1850. 

"It  shall  be  in  the  power  of  '« the  guaranty  is,  that 

Congress  hereafter  to  make  four  new  states  shall  be  made  out  of 
other  new  states  out  of  Texan  it,  and  that  such  states  as  are 
territory."  formed  out  of  that  portion  of 

Texas  lying  south  of  36°  30',  may 
come  in   as   slave   states   to   the 


number  of  four,  in  addition  to  the 
state  then  in  existence."    (p.  29.) 


The  first  speech  speaks  of  the  power  of  Congress,  but  the 
last  of  the  obligation  of  Congress,  to  admit  new  states  out  of 
Texan  territory.  The  first  speaks  of  "  four  other  new  states  ;  " 
but  the  last  of  the  "  guaranty  "  to  admit  "  SLAVE  states  to  the 
number  of  four."  Yet  the  first  speech  is  cited,  to  men  who 
can  read  and  write,  as  identical  "  in  legal  construction  and 
effect "  with  the  last.  The  motto  under  which  Danton  at 
tempted  to  carry  himself  through  his  bloody  career,  was  : 
"  L'audace,  Paudace,  toujours  Paudace."  "  Audacity,  au 
dacity,  always  audacity." 

But  what  else  did  Mr.  Webster  say,  in  his  speech  of  the 
23d  of  March,  1848  ?  Referring  to  the  debate  which  took 
place  in  December,  1845,  on  the  final  act  for  admitting  Texas, 
Mr.  Webster  said  :  "  And  I  added,  that  while  I  held,  with  as 
much  faithfulness  as  any  citizen  of  the  country,  to  all  the 
original  arrangements  and  compromises  of  the  constitution 
under  which  we  live,  I  never  could,  and  I  never  should,  bring 
myself  to  be  in  favor  of  the  admission  of  any  states  into  the 
Union  as  slaveholding  states."  *  This  is  what  Mr.  Webster 
reports  himself  to  have  said  when  the  final  vote  on  the  ad 
mission  of  Texas  was  immediately  to  be  taken,  and  when  he 
commenced  his  speech  by  saying,  "  I  am  quite  aware,  Mr. 
President,  that  the  resolution  will  pass,"  —  meaning  the  reso 
lution  for  the  admission  of  Texas.  Mr.  Webster's  "  never 
could  and  never  should  "  covered  the  exact  case  of  the  then 
contemplated  future  slaveholding  states  to  be  formed  out  of 
Texas.  While  in  the  broadness  of  its  terms  it  embraced  all 
slaveholding  states,  whensoever,  or  whencesoever  they  might 
come,  it  had  special  and  pointed  application  to  any  slave  state 
to  be  thereafter  formed  out  of  Texan  territory. 

*  CoTig.  Globe,  1st  session  30th  Congress,  p.  533. 


332 

In  the  same  speech  of  December  22,  1845,  Mr.  Webster 
spoke  as  follows  :  — 

«« It  may  be  said  that  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  constitution, 
new  states  are  to  be  admitted  on  the  same  footing  as  the  old  states. 
It  may  be  so ;  but  it  does  not  follow  at  all  from  that  provision  that 
every  territory  or  portion  of  country  may  at  pleasure  establish  slavery, 
and  then  say  we  will  become  a  portion'  of  the  Union ;  and  will  bring 
with  us  the  principles  which  we  may  have  thus  adopted,  and  must  be 
received  on  the  same  footing  as  the  old  states.  It  will  always  be  a 
question  whether  the  old  states  have  not  a  right,  (and  I  think  they 
have  the  clearest  right,)  to  require  that  the  state  coining  into  the 
Union  should  come  in  upon  an  equality;  and,  if  the  existence  of 
slavery  be  an  impediment  to  coming  in  on  an  equality,  then  the  state 
proposing  to  come  in  should  be  required  to  remove  that  inequality  by 
abolishing  slavery,  or  take  the  alternative  of  being  excluded." 

He  also  said,  in  the  same  speech,  "  I  agree  with  the  unan 
imous  opinion  of  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts." 

And  what  was  this  "  unanimous  opinion  of  the  legislature 
of  Massachusetts  "  ?  Among  many  other  things  equally  de 
cisive,  the  Massachusetts  legislature,  on  the  26th  of  March, 
1845,  —  and,  of  course,  long  after  the  annexation  resolutions 
had  been  passed,  —  declared  as  follows  :  — 

"  And  whereas  the  consent  of  the  executive  and  legislative  depart 
ments  of  the  government  of  the  United  States  has  been  given,  by  a 
resolution  passed  on  the  27th  of  February  last,  to  the  adoption  of  pre 
liminary  measures  to  accomplish  this  nefarious  project,  [the  admission 
of  Texas,  with  the  stipulation  to  admit  four  more  states  out  of  its 
territory  ;]  therefore,  be  it 

"  Resolved,  That  Massachusetts  hereby  refuses  to  acknowledge  the 
act  of  the  government  of  the  United  States,  authorizing  the  admis 
sion  of  Texas,  as  a  legal  act,  in  any  way  binding  her  from  using  her 
utmost  exertions,  in  cooperation  with  other  states,  by  every  lawful 
and  constitutional  measure,  to  annul  its  conditions,  and  defeat  its 
accomplishment. 

"  Resolved,  That  no  territory  hereafter  applying  to  be  admitted  to 
the  Union,  as  a  state,  should  be  admitted  without  a  condition  that 
domestic  slavery  should  be  utterly  extinguished  within  its  borders, 
and  Massachusetts  denies  the  validity  of  any  compromise  whatsoever, 
that  may  have  been,  or  that  may  hereafter  be,  entered  into  by  persons 
in  the  government  of  the  Union,  intended  to  preclude  the  future  ap 
plication  of  such  a  condition  by  the  people,  acting  through  their 
representatives  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States." 

Such  were  the  opinions  which  Mr.  Webster  then  openly 
expressed,  'and  such  the  resolutions  of  the  legislature  of 
Massachusetts,  which  he  fully  indorsed.  Yet  he  now  pro- 


333 

>nder  that  any  body  can  see  any  difference 
between  the  doctrine  of  those  speeches  and  resolutions,  and 
those  of  his  speech  delivered  on  the  7th  of  March.* 

6.  A  reference  to  a  few  other  misstatements  of  facts  will 
close  my  remarks  on  this  subject. 

Mr.  Webster  says  that,  previous  to  writing  his  Newburyport 
letter,  he  made  "  diligent  inquiry,"  of  members  of  Congress 
from  New  England,  to  ascertain  how  many  arrests  of  fugitive 
slaves  had  been  made  in  their  time  ;  and  he  adds,  "  the  result 

*  Professor  Stuart,  in  a  pamphlet  entitled  "  Conscience  and  the 
Constitution,"  pp.  78,  9,  steps  in  to  defend  Mr.  Webster's  position  that 
wo  are  bound,  by  contract  with  Texas,  to  admit  from  her  territory, 
"  slave  states  to  the  number  of  four  ;  "  and  he  incidentally  refers 
to  and  combats  my  views  on  this  subject. 

I  respectfully  submit  to  the  revercned  and  learned  professor  a 
single  consideration,  -which  I  trust  will  convince  him  that  I  am  not  in 
error. 

For  argument's  sake,  admit  the  contract  with  Texas  to  be  unim 
peachable  ;  although,  if  it  be  so,  I  see  not  why  any  one  Congress  may 
not  absorb  and  exhaust  all  the  power  to  admit  new  states,  which  the 
constitution  contains,  by  making  contracts  for  centuries  to  come,  for 
all  the  new  states  that  shall  be  admitted ;  and  for  all  the  applications 
for  admission  that  shall  be  rejected.  But,  admitting  the  validity  of 
the  Texan  contract,  what  does  it  purport  ?  That  "  new  states,"  "  not 
exceeding  four,"  "  may  be  formed  out  of  the  territory  thereof."  Those 
south  of  36°  30',  may  be  slave ;  that,  or  those,  north  of  36° 
30',  shall  be  free ;  the  whole  "  not  exceeding  four."  Here, 
then,  is  an  executory  and  mutual  contract.  It  is  executory  ;  because 
it  is  not  to  be  executed  at  the  time  of  making,  but  in  fiituro.  It  is 
mutual,  because,  for  the  State  of  Texas,  and  for  the  one  or  more 
slave  states,  south  of  36°  30',  there  are  to  be  one  or  more  free  states 
north  of  it. 

Xow,  the  principle  is  so  clear  that  I  think  no  one  will  for  a  moment 
dispute  it,  that  when  an  executory  and  mutual  contract  is  to  be  ex 
ecuted,  say  at  four  different  times,  each  preceding  act  of  execution 
must  be  such  as  to  allow  of  the  ultimate  execution  of  the  whole. 
Neither  the  first,  second,  nor  third  act  of  execution,  must  be  so  exe 
cuted  as  to  render  the  fourth  impossible.  Neither  the  first,  second,  nor 
third  act,  must  be  so  executed  in  favor  of  either  of  the  parties,  as  to 
render  the  execution  of  the  fourth,  in  favor  of  the  other  party,  im 
possible.  But  if  Texas  can  have  "slave  states  to  the  number  of 
four"  formed  in  succession  out  of  her  territory,  then,  as  the  whole 
number  to  be  formed  is  not  to  exceed  "  four,"  there  can  be  no  free 
state  formed,  under  the  alleged  contract. 

It  is  not  within  my  knowledge  that  such  an  interpretation  of  this 
supposed  contract  was  ever  suggested  by  any  Texan  citizen,  or  by  any 
southern  man.  I  suppose  it  to  have  been  advanced,  first,  by  a  north 
ern  senator  ;  and  seconded,  first,  by  a  northern  divine. 


334 

of  all  I  can  learn  is  this  :  No  seizure  of  an  alleged  slave  has 
ever  been  made  in  Maine." 

Now,  two  such  cases  have  happened  in  the  State  of  Maine. 
One  took  place  in  the  eastern  part  of  the  state,  about  1835  or 
'36.  The  other  happened  at  or  near  Thomaston,  a  little  later. 
In  this  latter  case,  the  fugitive  came  to  Maine  in  a  Thomaston 
vessel,  whose  master  was  afterwards  demanded  as  a  fugitive 
from  justice.  This  demand  gave  rise  to  a  prolonged  corre 
spondence,  I  think,  with  no  less  than  three  governors  of  Maine. 
This  correspondence  was  extensively  circulated  through  the 
newspapers,  or  referred  to  by  them,  and  it  would  seem  hardly 
possible  that  Mr.  Webster  should  not  have  seen  it.  Since  the 
Newburyport  letter  was  published,  this  misstatement  of  fact 
has  been  noticed  in  the  Maine  newspapers,  yet  no  retraction  is 
made.  The  misstatement  is  allowed  to  be  spread  over  the 
\vhole  country,  uncorrected  by  its  author.  Mr.  Webster  then 
adds,"  No  seizure  of  an  alleged  fugitive  slave  has  ever  been 
made  in  Vermont."  Tradition,  and,  as  I  believe,  authentic 
history,  contradict  Mr.  Webster  here.  It  is  said  by  "  members 
of  Congress"  from  Vermont,  that  an  alleged  fugitive  was 
carried  before  Judge  Harrington  of  Vermont,  in  1807,  and  on 
his  being  asked  what  evidence  would  satisfy  him  that  the  per 
son  was  a  slave,  he  replied,  "  A  bill  of  sale  from  Almighty 
God." 

But  even  if  these  statements  of  Mr.  Webster,  with  regard 
to  the  New  England  States,  were  all  true,  it  would  avail  him 
nothing;  for,  in  the  eye  of  patriotism,  it  matters  not  where 
such  seizures  are  made.  I  refer  to  it  only  to  show  that  Mr. 
Webster  is  not  to  be  relied  upon  in  these  matters,  either  for 
the  accuracy  of  his  original  positions,  or  for  a  retraction  of 
them,  when  their  error  is  pointed  out  by  the  public  press.  I 
wish  not  to  be  understood,  on  this  particular  point,  as  imput 
ing  to  Mr.  Webster  an  intentional  misstatement ;  because  he 
accompanied  his  original  statement  with  a  salvo.  He  con 
fessed,  —  and  he  is  entitled  to  the  full  benefit  of  the  confes 
sion, —  that  his  information  might  not  be  "  entirely  accurate," 
though  he  supposed  it  not  to  be  "  materially  erroneous."  It 
is  "  materially  erroneous  ;"  and  though  one  error  has  been 
exposed  in  the  Maine  papers,  he  does  not  rectify  it.  Possibly 
he  does  not  know  it. 

While  holding  Massachusetts  up  to  reproach  for  "  growing 


335 

fervid  on  Pennsylvania  wrongs,"  Mr.  Webster  draws  succor 
and  encouragement  from  the  Society  of  Friends,  and  especially 
from  the  Friends  of  Pennsylvania.  He  says  that  they  remain 
"  of  sound  and  disposing  minds  and  memories ;  "  and  he  con 
trasts  their  wisdom  and  composure  with  the  "  vehement  and 
empty  declarations,  the  wild  and  fantastic  conduct  of  both 
men  and  women  which  have  so  long  disturbed  and  so  much 
disgraced  the  commonwealth11  of  Massachusetts.  He  then 
adds,  "  I  am  misled  by  authority  which  ought  not  to  mislead, 
if  it  be  not  true,  that  that  great  body,  [of  Friends,]  approves 
the  sentiments  to  which  I  gave  utterance  "on  the  floor  of  the 
Senate."  I  will  now  show  that  this  alleged  approval  by  the 
Friends,  though  worthy  of  any  price  but  truth,  was  too  dearly 
bought. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  Friends  are  divided  into  two  great 
denominations.  Each  has  its  periodical,  one  now  in  its  eighth, 
the  other  in  its  fourth  year.  In  the  numbers  published  since 
the  appearance  of  the  Newburyport  letter,  both  these  period 
icals  do  not  "  approve,"  but  repudiate  and  denounce  the  sen 
timents  to  which  Mr.  Webster  gave  utterance  "  on  the  floor 
of  the  Senate." 

The  FriencTs  Intelligencer  deals  at  length  with  Mr.  Web 
ster's  u  sentiments"  on  the  "  Fugitive  Slave  Bill;"  on  the 
legislation  of  the  north  for  the  protection  of  its  own  citizens  ; 
on  his  pseudo  discoveries  in  u  physical  geography;  "  and  on 
the  u  legal  construction  and  effect  "  of  the  Texas  resolutions  ; 
and  it  condemns  them  all. 

The  FrienfVs  Revieiv  dissents  not  less  positively  from  Mr. 
Webster's  positions  ;  and  both  call  him  severely  to  account 
for  the  defamation  of  themselves,  which  his  letter  implies. 

On  his  u  sentiments  "  respecting  fugitive  slaves,  the  "  Re- 
r ieic  "  observes  that  they  have  yet  to  learn  "  that  that  part  of 
his  speech  was  approved  by  any  member  or  professor  of  the 
society." 

I  wish  I  had  space  to  quote  from  these  able  articles,  but 
must  forbear. 

John  G.  Whittier,  Esq.,  speaking  for  the  Quakers  of  New 
England,  gives  "a  peremptory  denial"  to  Mr.  Webster^ 
statement.  I  quote  the  following  paragraph  from  him  :  — 

44  Xow,  we  undertake  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  member  of  the  So 
ciety  of  .Friends,  in  free  or  slave  states,  who,  whether  acting  as  a 


336 

magistrate  or  as  citizen,  could  carry  out  the  provisions  of  this  most 
atrocious  bill,  without  rendering  himself  liable  to  immediate  expul 
sion  from  a  society  whose  character  would  be  disgraced,  and  whose 
discipline  would  be  violated,  by  such  action.  It  has  been,  in  times 
past,  the  misfortune  of  the  Society  of  Friends  to  be  villified,  carica 
tured,  and  misrepresented ;  but  we  remember  nothing,  even  in  the 
old  days  of  persecution,  so  hard  to  bear  as  the  compliments  of  the 
Massachusetts  senator.  Whatever  his  '  authority '  may  have  been,  we 
do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce  it  unqualifiedly  false  to  the  last 
degree." 

Now  what  shall  be  thought  of  a  cause  that  requires  such  a 
series  of  fabricatioris  as  Mr.  Webster  is  here  proved  to  have 
made,  or  of  the  man  that  can  make  it ! 

There  are  many  other  points  presented  by  Mr.  Webster's 
speech  of  the  7th  of  March,  or  by  what  he  has  since  said  and 
written  to  defend  it,  which  seem  to  me  as  unwarrantable  in  fact, 
and  as  reprehensible  in  principle,  as  any  above  enumerated.  I 
shall  close  these  notes,  however,  with  one  comment  more  ; 
reserving  others,  —  though  sincerely  hoping  never  to  have 
occasion  to  use  them. 

Among  the  excoriations  with  which  Mr.  Webster  amused 
himself  and  his  southern  new-born  pro-slavery  admirers,  on 
the  7th  of  March  last,  he  flayed  nobody  half  so  deeply  or  so 
complacently,  as  he  did  his  old  fellow-senators,  Messrs.  Dix, 
of  New  York,  and  Niles,  of  Connecticut.  He  scored  them  to 
the  living  flesh,  and  then  soothed  their  smarting  wounds  by 
vitriol  and  caustic,  as  though  he  loved  them.  Their  agency 
in  the  Texas  swindle,  he  made  odiously  conspicuous.  He 
taunted  them  with  heart-piercing  innuendo  for  their  compulsory 
retirement  from  public  life.  And  then  he  portrayed  them  as 
occupying  their  enforced  vacation  in  attempting  to  rouse  the 
people  to  save  those  regions  from  the  curse  of  slavery,  which, 
but  for  their  sins,  never  would  have  been  exposed  to  it.  He 
worked  up  the  scene  so  graphically,  that  every  one  mocked 
at  their  contemptible  plight,  and  at  the  ridiculous  contrast  be 
tween  the  swiftness  of  their  offence  and  the  lameness  of  their 
expiation.  The  effect  was  dramatic.  The  pro-slavery  part 
of  the  gallery  and  the  floor  responded  with  a  shout  of  laughter. 
Yet  devoted  and  long-tried  friends  of  Mr.  Webster  were  there, 
whom  no  darkness  of  blindness  could  prevent  from  seeing  that 
his  bitter  sarcasm  against  the  ex-senators,  though  calculated 
to  make  the  u  unskilful  laugh,"  must  make  the  "judicious 


337 

grieve."  They  could  not  fail  to  see  that  he,  Mr.  Webster 
himself,  at  that  very  moment,  was  occupying  precisely  the  same 
pro-slavery  ground,  which  Messrs.  Dix  and  Niles  had  occupied, 
when  they  brought  in  Texas  and  "  reanncxed  "  California  and 
New  Mexico.  He  was  exerting  all  his  great  talents  to  do  an 
act  of  precisely  the  same  character  which  Messrs.  Dix  and 
Niles  had  done  ;  —  that  is,  to  open  new  territory  to  slavery. 
And  doubtless  the  first  thought  which  arose  in  many  a  mind 
was  the  same  melancholy  one  which  spontaneously  arose  in 
my  own,  that  should  he  succeed  in  arguing  down,  or  laughing 
down  the  "  Wilmot"  as  he  twice  scornfully  called  the  great 
proviso  of  freedom  ;  and  should  he  then  betake  himself  to 
penitence  and  prayer,  and  by  years  of  effort,  strive  to  stay 
back  from  slavery  the  regions  he  had  doomed  to  it,  he  would 
only  have  elevated  himself  to  the  very  u  platform  "  on  which 
Messrs.  Dix  and  Niles  stood  when  he  made  them  the  objects  of 
his  taunts  and  ridicule  ! 
29 


338 


LETTER 

ANSWERING  AN   INVITATION   TO  CELEBRATE  THE  ANNIVERSARY 
OF  THE  ORDINANCE  OF    1787,  AT  CLEVELAND,  OHIO. 

WEST  NEWTON,  July  9,  1849. 
GENTLEMEN  ; 

I  have  received  your  kind  invitation  to  be  present  at 
Cleveland,  on  the  13th  inst.,  to  celebrate  the  anniver 
sary  of  the  great  "  Ordinance  "  which  excluded  slavery 
forever  from,  and  secured  freedom  forever  to  the  North 
western  Territory.  If  I  could  tell  you  how  deeply  I  sym 
pathize  with  you  in  this  movement,  and  how  much  my 
soul  desires,  not  merely  to  celebrate,  but  to  hallow  the 
event,  you  would  then  believe  me  when  I  say,  that  I 
have  had  a  sharp  struggle  not  to  forego  all  considera 
tions  of  business  and  of  health,  for  the  purpose  of  join 
ing  in  your  festival.  I  regard  the  Ordinance  which 
redeemed  a  territory  of  more  than  two  hundred  and 
sixty  thousand  square  miles,  from  the  unspeakable  sin 
and  curse  of  slavery,  and  consecrated  it  to  freedom,  as 
one  of  the  grandest  moral  events  in  the  annals  of 
mankind. 

Without  that  Ordinance,  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  itself,  in  its  application  to  that  vast  and  fertile 
region,  would  have  been  deprived  of  its  power  to  con 
fer  blessing  and  prosperity  upon  it  ;  and  it  is  a  fact 
never  to  be  forgotten,  that  the  original  Declaration  and 
the  original  Ordinance  were  both  drawn  up  by  the 
same  great  champion  of  human  rights,  whose  hatred 
of  slavery  grew  strong  and  deep  by  his  personal 
knowledge  of  its  wrongs  and  its  calamities. 

Without  the  Ordinance,  the  Revolution  itself,  in  its 
application  to  that  territory,  and  the  treaty  of  1783,  by 


339 

which  its  ample  domain  was  secured  to  the  Union, 
would  have  been  shorn  of  their  glory,  and  robbed  of 
their  value. 

Without  the  Ordinance,  the  discovery  of  this  West 
ern  continent,  so  far  as  that  territory  constitutes  a  part 
of  it,  would  have  given  us  no  occasion  to  remember 
the  name  of  Columbus  with  gratitude. 

Without  the  Ordinance,  it  would  have  been  better, 
at  the  creation  of  the  world,  that  all  that  part  of  it 
which  now  constitutes  your  five  beautiful  and  flourish 
ing  states,  with  a  residuum  of  space  large  enough  for  still 
another,  had  been  left  as  a  "  Dead  Sea,"  whose  bitter 
and  poisonous  waters  would  not  have  allowed  a  live 
thing  to  swim  beneath  its  surface,  nor  to  fly  above  it, 
nor  a  green  thing  to  grow  by  its  shores. 

And  without  the  Ordinance,  it  is  no  irreverence  to 
say,  that  even  the  omnipotent  Spirit  of  God,  working 
through  natural  laws,  for  human  progress  and  human 
blessedness,  would  have  met  with  bafflings  and  threat- 
enings  in  its  operations  and  influences  for  the  redemption 
of  the  race. 

Accept,  gentlemen,  the  assurance  of  my  sympathy 
and  regard. 

HORACE  MANN. 


340 


LETTER 

ACCEPTING  THE  NOMINATION  OF  THE  FREE    SOIL  CONVENTION 
FOR   REPRESENTATIVE   TO   THE  THIRTY-SECOND  CONGRESS. 

WEST  NEWTON,  Oct.  24, 1850. 
HON.  C.   F.  ADAMS  ; 

Dear  Sir, — Your  favor  of  the  21st  inst.,  is  this 
day  received.  It  informs  me  that  at  a  convention, 
(over  which  you  had  the  honor  to  preside,)  held  at 
Dedham,  on  the  16th  inst.,  I  was  unanimously  nomi 
nated  as  a  candidate  for  Representative  to  the  thirty- 
second  Congress  of  the  United  States.  For  the  kind 
terms  in  which  your  communication  is  expressed,  be 
pleased  to  accept  my  thanks. 

This  nomination  places  me  in  no  new  relation  to  the 
friends  of  freedom  and  humanity,  wherever  they  may 
be  found.  I  believe  my  name  was  first  suggested  to 
the  voters  of  this  district,  (now  nearly  three  years  ago,) 
on  the  ground  of  my  supposed  devotion  to  the  rights  of 
men.  The  resolutions  passed  at  all  the  conventions  by 
which  I  have  been  nominated,  and  especially  those 
passed  so  repeatedly  and  unanimously  by  our  state 
legislature,  have  been  in  the  nature  of  instructions  ;  or, 
at  least,  of  urgent  advice  and  solicitation,  in  regard  to 
my  course  on  the  great  questions  which  have  since 
agitated  the  country.  My  own  convictions  of  duty  so 
fully  and  entirely  corresponding  with  the  injunctions 
thus  laid  upon  me,  it  has  been  easy  for  me  to  act  in  full 
conformity  to  the  wishes  of  the  great  majority  of  my 
constituents  and  of  the  state,  as  those  wishes  have  been 
repeatedly  expressed.  This  renders  any  detailed  expo 
sition  of  expectations  on  your  part,  or  of  assurances  on 
mine,  unnecessary.  I  know  that  the  leading  and  most 


341 

valued  article  in  your  creed  is  the  sacredness  and  secu 
rity  of  human  freedom.  You  know  that  I  embrace 
this  same  article  of  faith  with  my  whole  heart.  Other 
matters  may  be  very  important,  but  still  are  subordi 
nate.  Peculiar  forms  of  organization  are  comparatively 
non-essentials.  They  are  but  means  to  ends  ;  and,  in 
regard  to  them,  a  large  allowance  is  to  be  made  for 
honest  differences  of  opinion.  But  the  natural  right 
of  every  human  being  to  the  liberty  which  God  has 
given  him,  until  forfeited  by  crime  of  his  own ;  the 
duty  of  our  government  to  save  every  part  of  this 
earth  over  which  it  has  jurisdiction  from  the  direst  of 
all  earthly  curses  and  the  greatest  of  all  social  crimes, 
—  the  curse  and  the  crime  of  slavery  ;  —  these  are 
among  the  first  of  the  dread  accountabilities  that  at 
tach  to  rational  and  immortal  creatures. 

I  believe  it  also  to  be  the  duty  of  government  to 
provide  for  the  economical  or  pecuniary  welfare  of  the 
people  ;  to  encourage  industry  by  securing  the  rewards 
of  labor  to  the  laborer,  and  to  discourage  the  competi 
tions  into  which  those  who  rule  and  control  the  im 
poverished,  degraded,  and  almost  brutified  laborers  of 
other  countries,  are  striving  to  enter  with  our  own 
people,  —  competitions,  which,  if  not  prevented,  will, 
to  a  great  extent,  reduce  our  laborers  to  the  wretched 
ness  and  privation  of  theirs.  I  believe  that  the  money, 
and  the  comforts  purchasable  with  it,  which  such  com 
petitions  take  from  the  workman  here,  do  not  go  to 
improve  the  condition  of  the  workman  there,  but  are 
intercepted  and  appropriated  by  others.  I  make  this 
statement  of  my  views  all  the  more  readily,  because  I 
do  not  wish  to  receive  an  unintelligent  vote  from  any 
man,  and  I  therefore  abjure  all  disguises  and  reserves. 
From  my  past  votes  and  speeches  in  Congress  my  con 
stituents  know  upon  what  principles  and  to  what  ends 
I  have  acted.  To  them  I  refer,  and  deem  it  unneces 
sary  to  say  more. 

29* 


342 

Those  who  have  taken  the  trouble  to  read  what  I 
have  said  on  the  floor  of  the  House,  must  have  seen 
that,  though  I  have  endeavored  to  express  some  stern 
truths,  on  vital  subjects,  in  unambiguous  language,  yet 
that  I  have  never  uttered  a  word  designed  to  inflict  un 
necessary  pain  upon  our  political  brethren  of  the  south  ; 
or  to  wound  feelings  which  men  may  erroneously  call 
honorable.  I  desire  to  pursue  the  same  course  at  all 
times  and  with  all  men.  The  cause  of  liberty  is  one 
in  which  the  true  object  of  ambition  is  to  make  great 
principles  most  clear,  and  not  to  use  harsh  expressions 
respecting  the  conduct  or  opinion  of  others.  It  is  as 
necessary  that  the  man  whom  I  would  convince  should 
be  in  a  calm  state  of  mind,  as  that  I  should  be  in  such 
a  state  myself.  Exasperation  paralyzes  judgment. 
The  great  points  on  which  men  and  parties  so  vehe 
mently  differ,  can  only  be  permanently  settled  at  the 
tribunal  of  reason  and  conscience. 

Several  laws  were  passed  at  the  last  session  of  Con 
gress,  on  which  I  desired  and  designed  to  speak,  in  the 
name  and  on  behalf  of  my  constituents.  But  I  was 
obliged  to  act  upon  them,  under  the  silence  enforced  by 
the  previous  question.  One  of  them,  in  particular,  was 
so  hostile  to  all  the  principles  which  history  and 
reason  had  ever  taught  me,  and  so  wounding  to  all  the 
sentiments  which  I  had  ever  imbibed  from  benevolence 
arid  religion,  that  I  resolved  to  seize  the  first  opportu 
nity  that  should  be  offered  to  portray  some  of  its 
features.  I  refer  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  act,  so  called  ; 
and  I  trust  this  will  not  be  deemed  an  unfitting  occa 
sion  to  lay  bare  a  portion  of  its  enormities.  I  will  re 
mark,  that  I  had  prepared  an  amendment  for  the  secu 
rity  of  our  free  colored  seamen  in  southern  ports,  but 
was  shut  out  from  all  chance  of  offering  it.  It  struck 
me  that  if  new  and  oppressive  measures  were  to  be 
taken  to  carry  back  alleged  slaves  to  bondage,  some 
thing  should  also  be  done  to  restore  freemen  to  liberty. 


343 

While  the  south  were  seeking  new  guaranties  for  men 
who  claim  to  own  other  men,  it  was  a  time  for  the 
north  to  demand  new  guaranties  for  men  who  own 
themselves.  But  all  debate  was  suppressed  ;  property 
vanquished  liberty  ;  and  a  pure  pro-slavery  law  was 
enacted,  unadulterated  by  any  alloy  of  freedom. 

In  regard  to  this  Fugitive  Slave  act,  is  it  not  astonish 
ing  that  men  should  ever  ask  the  question,  Does  the 
constitution  demand  the  trial  by  jury?  instead  of  the 
question,  Will  the  constitution  allow  it  ?  The  first  is 
the  tyrant's  question,  granting  no  more  than  he  is  com 
pelled  to  give.  The  last  is  the  republican's  question, 
volunteering  all  that  he  can  grant.  In  a  free  govern 
ment,  where  the  trial  by  jury  is  held  to  be  the  surest 
safeguard  of  personal  liberty,  the  inquiry  ought  never 
to  be,  whether  the  constitution  secures  or  necessitates 
this  form  of  trial  ;  for  it  is  enough,  if  the  constitution 
will  permit  or  tolerate  it.  Instead  of  seeking  evasions, 
and  close  constructions,  and  hunting  among  the  musty 
precedents  of  darker  times,  in  order  to  shut  out  the 
jury  trial  in  cases  of  personal  liberty,  the  true  lover  of 
freedom  would  ask  only  for  an  interpretation  that  would 
warrant  it.  It  would  not  be  among  his  last  thoughts ; 
he  would  not  wait  until  a  stern  necessity  forced  such  a 
construction  upon  him  ;  but  his  first  desire  arid  effort 
would  be  to  find  some  legitimate  reason  for  conferring 
it.  He  would  not  ask,  in  how  few  cases  he  must,  but 
in  how  many  he  might,  admit  it.  Yet  this  matter  has 
been  discussed,  and  is  still  discussed,  on  one  side,  as 
though  we  were  bound  to  avoid  the  jury  trial  if  we 
could ;  not  as  though  we  were  bound  to  grant  it,  if  by 
fair  interpretation  we  might.  It  has  been  discussed  as 
though  the  jury  trial,  to  protect  a  man's  right  to  him 
self,  were  an  evil ;  and  as  though  the  sudden  seizure, 
"  summary  "  adjudication,  arid  speedy  consignment  of 
a  fellow-being  to  bondage,  were  too  precious  a  blessing 
to  be  put  in  jeopardy,  by  submission  to  twelve  good 


344 

and  lawful  men.  Not  how  much  may  we  do  for  free 
dom,  but  how  much  can  we  do  for  slavery,  has  been 
the  tacit  assumption  of  the  argument.  But  I  pass  by 
this  for  graver  objections. 

The  Fugitive  Slave  act  purports  to  confer  judicial 
power  upon  persons  who  are  not  judges.  It  provides 
for  the  creation  of  scores  and  hundreds  of  officers 
called  "commissioners,"  and  upon  these,  it  is  said  on 
high  authority,  to  confer  original  and  final  jurisdic 
tion  on  questions  of  human  liberty.  The  constitution 
declares  in  whom  "  the  judicial  power  of  the  United 
States  shall  be  vested."  It  shall  be  vested  in  "one 
supreme  court,  and  in  such  inferior  courts  as  Congress, 
may  from  time  to  time  establish."  No  commissioner, 
nor  any  number  of  commissioners,  constitute  one  of 
these  courts.  "  The  judges,  both  of  the  supreme  and 
inferior  courts,  shall  hold  their  offices  during  good 
behavior."  A  commissioner  can  be  made  and  un 
made  on  any  day.  These  judges  are  to  "  receive  for 
their  services  a  compensation,  which  shall  not  be 
diminished  during  their  continuance  in  office."  The 
commissioners  are  compensated  by  chance  fees,  and 
not  by  a  fixed  salary.  The  President  nominates  and 
the  Senate  confirms  judges  of  the  supreme  and  infe 
rior  courts.  Commissioners  are  only  the  "  inferior 
officers  "  who  may  be  appointed  by  "  the  courts  of 
law." 

I  need  not  enforce  the  position,  that  the  power 
which  this  act  purports  to  confer  upon  commissioners 
is  judicial.  It  has  all  the  attributes  of  judicial  power. 
It  is  original,  final,  and  exclusive.  They  are  "to 
hear  and  determine."  The  fourth  section  says  they 
"shall  have  concurrent  jurisdiction  with  the  judges 
of  the  circuit  and  district  courts  of  the  United  States." 
The  attorney-general  of  the  United  States,  in  a  writ 
ten  opinion,  given  by  command  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  says  as  follows  :  "  These  officers, 


345 

[the  commissioners,]  and  each  of  them,  have  judicial 
power,  and  jurisdiction  to  hear,  examine,  and  decide 
the  case."  "  The  certificate  to  be  granted  to  the 
owner  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  act  and  judgment 
of  a  judicial  tribunal  having  competent  jurisdiction." 
"  Congress  has  constituted  a  tribunal  with  exclusive 
jurisdiction  to  determine  summarily,  and  without  ap 
peal,  who  are  fugitives  from  service."  "  The  judg 
ment  of  the  tribunal  created  by  this  act  is  conclusive 
upon  all  tribunals."  The  power  of  a  commissioner, 
therefore,  is  judicial  in  the  highest  sense,  —  in  the 
sense  of  the  constitution.  His  decision  cannot  be 
reheard  or  reexamined  by  any  judge,  or  by  any  court, 
of  any  state,  or  of  the  United  States.  In  no  other 
case  can  a  commissioner  perform  any  judicial  act,  or 
issue  any  executive  order,  whose  validity  may  not  be 
reexamined  in  the  court  for  which  he  acts,  or  in  some 
other.  He  cannot  strike  a  blow,  nor  fine  a  dollar,  nor 
punish  by  imprisonment  for  an  hour.  By  appeal,  by 
injunction,  by  mandamus  or  certiorari.  the  proceedings 
of  inferior  courts  or  magistrates  can  be  reached,  and 
their  legality  or  constitutionality  tested.  But  here  a 
multitude  of  tribunals  are  established,  over  whose  pro 
ceedings,  not  the  supreme  court  of  any  state,  no,  not 
even  the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States,  has 
supervision.  And  what  do  these  commissioners  decide? 
That  a  man  has  no  right  to  himself;  that  his  body, 
limbs,  faculties,  are  the  property  of  another  ;  that  he 
owes  service.  Suppose  the  question  were,  whether  the 
respondent  owed  the  claimant  a  dollar.  Could  the 
commissioner  give  judgment  and  issue  execution  for 
it  ?  Certainly  not.  But  yet  he  is  here  authorized  to 
decide  questions  infinitely  more  important  than  any 
amount  of  money.  He  is  to  decide  that  a  man  owes 
life-long  service  from  himself,  and  from  all  the  chil 
dren  of  his  loins. 

But  the  surrender  of  an  alleged  fugitive  from  service 


346 

has  been  compared  with  the  surrender  of  a  fugitive 
from  justice  ;  and  because  the  supreme  executive  of  a 
state  is  required  by  the  law  of  1793  to  surrender  fugi 
tives  from  justice,  it  is  claimed  that  any  commissioner 
may  surrender  fugitives  from  service,  without  liability 
to  question  or  r examination  by  any  human  authority. 
But  there  is  a  world- wide  difference  between  the  cases. 
When  the  fugitive  from  justice  is  delivered  up,  he  is 
delivered  into  the  custody  of  the  law.  Legal  process 
must  have  been  commenced  against  him  in  the  state 
from  which  he  fled.  He  is  returned,  that  the  proceed 
ings  thus  commenced  may  be  consummated.  He  is 
never  intrusted  to  private  hands.  The  shield  of  the 
law  is  continued  over  him.  After  arrest,  he  is  merely 
transferred  from  the  hands  of  the  law  in  one  state  to 
the  hands  of  the  law  in  another  state.  He  is  trans 
ferred,  not  to  evade  trial,  but  to  have  one.  But  the 
alleged  slave  is  delivered  up,  not  into  the  custody  of 
the  law,  where  his  rights  might  be  adjudicated  upon, 
but  into  private  hands ;  not  into  the  hands  of  a  neutral 
or  indifferent  person,  but  into  the  hands  of  a  party 
interested  to  deprive  him  of  all  his  rights;  —  if  he  be 
not  a  slave,  then  into  the  hands  of  a  man-stealer.  Mr. 
Clay  saw  this,  and  his  plan  provided  that  the  alleged 
fugitive  should  be  sent  home  to  be  tried.  But  the 
south  grew  bolder  and  bolder,  until  a  law  was  passed, 
by  which  one  class  of  men  have  less  security  for  their 
freedom  than  another  class  have  for  their  cattle. 

It  is  nugatory  to  say,  that  when  an  alleged  fugitive 
has  reached  his  claimant's  domicile,  he  may  there  peti 
tion  for  freedom.  Should  he  do  so,  it  would  be  an 
independent  and  original  proceeding,  instituted  under 
another  government.  Not  only  would  the  jurisdiction 
be  different,  but  the  character  of  the  litigants  would 
be  changed,  —  plaintiff  for  defendant,  and  defendant  for 
plaintiff.  The  old  case  is  not  to  be  reheard,  but  a  new 
one  tried.  Indeed,  a  very  intelligent  writer  on  this 


34? 

subject  has  queried  whether  the  certificate  of  the 
commissioner  may  not  be  pleaded  as  an  estoppel.  I 
say,  then,  that,  in  effect,  the  commissioner,  by  this 
act,  has  original,  Jitial,  and  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  a 
"case"  "in  law,"  "arising  under  the  constitution  and 
laws  of  the  United  States."  This  is  the  very  func 
tion  of  judges  and  courts.  This  is  the  identical 
power  which  the  constitution  of  the  United  States 
vests  in  judges  who  are  to  be  nominated  by  the  Presi 
dent,  confirmed  by  the  Senate,  to  hold  office  during 
good  behavior,  and  to  be  compensated  by  fixed  salaries. 

Again,  the  act  consigns  a  man  to  bondage,  without 
crime,  on  evidence  which  he  has  had  no  opportunity 
to  controvert.  The  claimant  must  prove  three  facts 
before  the  commissioner,  —  1st,  That  the  person  named 
in  the  warrant  owes  the  claimant  service  ;  2d,  That 
he  has  escaped  ;  3d,  Identity. 

Now,  according  to  the  act,  the  first  two  points,  — 
the  facts  of  owing  service  and  of  escaping,  —  may  be 
proved  behind  the  respondent's  back.  This  proof 
may  be  procured  against  the  alleged  fugitive  without 
any  notice  to  him,  actual  or  constructive  ;  without  the 
possibility  of  his  encountering  it,  or  disproving  it, 
however  false  it  may  be.  If  this  be  not  depriving  a 
person  of  his  "  liberty  "  "  without  due  process  of  law," 
what  can  be  ?  Why  not  make  the  whole  case  prov 
able  behind  the  man's  back.  —  in  another  state, — a 
thousand  miles  off, — and  spurn  the  forms  of  justice, 
after  having  spurned  its  substance  ?  This  binding  of 
a  man  by  evidence  obtained  without  his  knowledge, 
is  unknown  to  the  common  law,  and  abhorrent  to  it. 
It  is  never  permitted,  not  even  to  deprive  the  worst 
man  of  the  humblest  right.  Our  laws  save  the  rights 
of  all  parties  under  disability.  Who  is  under  so  great 
a  disability  as  he  who  knows  nothing,  and  can  know 
nothing,  of  what  is  going  on  against  him  ?  Notwith 
standing  the  constitution  declares  that  "full  faith  and 


348 

credit  shall  be  given  in  each  state  to  the  public  acts, 
records,  and  judicial  proceedings  of  every  other  state," 
yet  it  has  been  held  that  a  judgment  obtained  in 
another  state,  without  notice,  shall  not  prejudice  the 
party  against  whom  it  was  rendered.  Such  an  act  vio 
lates  the  first  principles  of  justice.  All  securities  for 
the  life,  liberty  and  property  of  us  all,  are  swept  away 
if  such  principles  can  be  established. 

Once  more  :  The  act  says  the  certificate  "  shall  be 
conclusive  of  the  right  of  the  person  or  persons  in 
whose  favor  granted,  to  remove  such  fugitive  to  the 
state  or  territory  from  which  he  escaped,  and  shall  pre 
vent  all  molestation  of  such  person  or  persons,  by  any 
process  issued  by  any  court,  judge,  magistrate,  or  any 
other  person  \vhomsoever.'*  According  to  this,  the 
certificate  is  a  talisman  which  protects  its  holder 
against  all  law,  all  evidence,  and  all  judicial  power.  A 
kidnapper  may  seize  a  free  man  in  Boston,  buy  evidence 
that  he  owes  this  mysterious  debt  of  service,  obtain  the 
requisite  certificate  against  his  victim,  and  then  neither 
the  mother  who  bore  him,  nor  the  elder  brothers  and 
sisters  who  grew  up  with  him,  nor  the  neighbors  who 
have  known  him  from  his  cradle,  nor  the  minister  who 
baptized  him,  can  testify  that  he  is  free  ;  nor  can  all 
the  judges  and  courts  in  the  commonwealth  stop  the 
man  who  is  bearing  away  one  of  their  fellow-citizens 
to  a  bondage  worse  than  death,  to  inquire  into  his  title. 
He  is  in  a  charmed  circle  that  neither  law  nor  justice 
can  enter.  Do  you  ask  where  is  that  old,  time-honored 
writ  of  habeas  corpus,  for  which  martyrs  have  died  and 
rivers  of  blood  have  flowed,  and  which  the  constitution 
declares  SHALL  NOT  be  suspended  "  unless  when  in 
cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  may 
require  it  "  ?  The  answer  is,  that  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  is  nothing  but  a  "  process  issued  "  by  a  court, 
and  the  act  declares  that  the  holder  of  the  certificate 
shall  be  exempt  from  all  "  molestation,"  "  by  any  pro- 


349 

cess  issued  by  any  court."  In  one  word,  the  law  con 
tains  a  provision  that  its  own  constitutionality  shall  not 
be  brought  into  question ;  at  least,  until  its  victim 
reaches  the  place  of  his  bondage,  and  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  rescuing  hands. 

Now,  even  if  this  act  does  not  commit  such  gross 
infractions  of  the  constitution  that  the  courts  will  set 
it  aside,  yet  it  would  seem  as  though  no  sane  man 
could  help  seeing  that  it  wars  upon  all  our  ideas  of 
justice  ;  that  it  repudiates  and  scorns  all  the  great  se 
curities  for  freedom  which  wise  arid  good  men,  for 
centuries  past,  have  given  their  labors,  and  their  lives, 
to  establish  ;  and  that  it  converts  the  vast  machinery 
of  the  social  state,  not  into  the  means  of  protecting, 
but  of  assailing,  the  liberties  of  the  citizen.  As  to  the 
appointment  of  commissioners,  it  gives  us  none  of  the 
constitutional  securities  that  improper  men  will  not 
be  invested  with  these  high  prerogatives  against  our 
dearest  rights  ;  and  as  to  the  manner  in  which  evidence 
may  be  procured,  it  resembles  the  missives  which  the 
inquisition,  in  olden  times,  sent  forth  against  heretics, 
to  seize  without  law,  to  try  without  defence,  and  to 
punish  without  mercy  or  hope.  It  resembles  the 
lettres  de  cachet,  which,  before  the  great  revolution,  the 
despots  of  France  gave,  in  blank,  to  villain  courtiers, 
and  villain  courtesans,  to  be  filled  up  with  the  names 
of  those  persons  whose  perdition  they  would  compass. 

There  are  other  points  in  this  bill  whose  enormity 
only  needs  to  be  stated  to  be  seen  and  abhorred.  One 
of  them  is  so  unspeakably  mean  and  contemptible, 
that  all  northern  men  must  feel  the  insult  more  keenly 
than  the  wrong.  It  provides  that  if  a  commissioner 
will  doom  a  man  to  bondage,  his  fee  shall  be  twice  as 
much  as  though  he  restores  him  to  liberty.  Now, 
every  body  knows  that  claimants  will  rarely,  if  ever, 
appear  before  commissioners  without  a  prima  facie 
case.  If  there  be  no  defence,  the  proceedings  will  be 
30 


350 

brief.  But  a  case  of  discharge  presupposes  a  defence 
and  a  trial.  A  case  of  discharge,  therefore,  will  prob 
ably  occupy  as  much  time  as  half  a  dozen  cases  of 
surrender.  Yet  for  this  greater  labor,  the  commis 
sioner  is  to  have  but  half  price.  In  assailing  all  we 
love  of  liberty,  could  not  the  framers  and  supporters  of 
this  measure  have  forborne  to  wound  us  in  all  we  feel 
of  honor ! 

The  cases  are  to  be  "heard  and  determined,"  as 
they  were  under  Robespierre,  "  in  a  summary  man- 
ner"  Shakspeare  enumerates  the  "law's  delay" 
among  the  causes  of  suicide.  Under  this  act,  real 
suicides  will  doubtless  be  occasioned  by  the  law's 
despatch*  This  "  summary  manner "  contains  the 
sum  of  wrong.  Does  not  every  lawyer  and  every 
client  know  that  when  an  action  is  brought  for  the 
unfaithful  execution  of  a  contract,  in  building  a  house 
or  a  ship,  or  for  the  balance  of  an  account,  or  for  flow 
ing  lands,  or  for  defamation  or  libel,  the  defendant 
needs  weeks  and  often  months  to  make  ready  for  his 
defence.  His  witnesses  may  be  in  another  state,  or 
abroad ;  it  may  be  necessary  to  examine  ancient  titles 
in  registries  of  deeds  or  of  wills,  to  make  surveys  of 
premises,  or  investigations  into  character  and  conduct. 
It  often  happens  that  when  process  is  first  served  upon 
a  man,  he  does  not  know  the  grounds  of  his  own  de 
fence.  They  may  consist  of  facts  which  he  has  for 
gotten,  or  of  law  of  which  he  is  ignorant.  Our  courts, 
acting  upon  this  well-known  truth,  have  established  a 
rule  that  a  party,  even  after  he  has  had  fourteen  days' 
notice,  shall  be  entitled  to  a  continuance  as  a  matter 
of  right,  unless  under  special  circumstances ;  and  he 
may  always  have  it  on  cause  shown.  I  ask  any  de 
fendant  who  was  ever  forced  into  court  to  resist  a 

*  Since  writing  the  above,  I  see  that  a  man  in  New  Jersey  was  so 
overcome  with  flight  at  the  rumor  that  slave-catchers  were  in  town, 
that  paralysis  and  death  speedily  ensued. 


351 

claim  of  any  magnitude  or  difficulty,  whether  he  was 
ready  to  do  so,  on  the  instant  when  process  was  served 
upon  him  ?  Yet  this  is  what  the  respondent  must  do 
under  the  Fugitive  Slave  act.  On  the  26th  day  of  last 
September,  James  Hamlet  was  peacefully  pursuing  a 
lawful  occupation  in  Water  Street,  New  York,  and 
earning  an  honest  support  for  his  wife  and  children. 
In  three  hours,  hand-cuifed,  in  irons,  and  surrounded  by 
armed  men,  he  was  on  his  way  to  the  house  of  bondage. 
No  time  was  given  him  for  procuring  the  aid  of  coun 
sel.  He  declared  he  was  free,  that  his  mother  was  a 
free  woman,  and  he  a  free  man.  But  by  another  pro 
vision  in  the  act,  it  is  declared  that  "  in  no  trial  or 
hearing  under  this  act,  shall  the  testimony  of  such  al 
leged  fugitive  be  admitted  in  evidence."  In  all  other 
cases,  within  the  broad  compass  of  the  common  or 
statute  law  of  Great  Britain  or  of  this  country,  a  party 
litigant  may  give  evidence  pertaining  to  the  suit.  In 
some  cases,  he  may  give  evidence  on  the  merits ;  in 
all  cases,  he  may  make  affidavit  on  interlocutory  mat 
ters.  A  man  who  has  been  in  the  state  prison,  a  felon 
scarred  with  crime,  may  still  make  affidavit,  in  his  own 
case,  under  certain  circumstances,  though  he  can  testify 
neither  for  nor  against  any  other  person.  But  an  alleged 
fugitive  can  make  oath  to  no  fact,  and  under  no  cir 
cumstances,  for  delay  or  other  cause.  It  would  con 
flict  with  that  "  summary  manner "  in  which  it  is 
deemed  expedient  to  dispose  of  human  liberty. 

Look  at  this  provision  under  the  light  of  a  few 
facts.  In  the  case  of  Mahoney  vs.  Ashton,  (4  Harris 
&  McHenry's  Maryland  Reports,)  the  petitioner  for 
freedom  claimed  that  a  maternal  ancestor,  four  genera- 
lions  back,  who  had  been  brought  over  by  Lord  Balti 
more,  in  the  early  days  of  the  colony,  was  free  ;  and, 
by  an  extraordinary  chain  of  evidence,  he  traced  his 
descent  from  that  free  source.  It  was  a  claim  which 
any  court  in  Massachusetts  would  have  sustained 
without  hesitation. 


352 

Now  how  much  evidence  of  history,  of  record,  of 
parol,  does  the  bare  mention  of  such  a  case  suggest  ? 
Who  could  have  been  prepared  to  try  it  in  three  hours  ; 
ay,  as  soon  as  he  could  be  seized  and  hurried  to  a 
lawyer's  office  ? 

Among  the  alleged  fugitives  in  the  "  Pearl  cases," 
so  called,  which  I  assisted  in  trying  in  Washington, 
in  the  years  1848  and  '49,  was  the  family  of  Daniel 
Bell,  consisting  of  his  wife  and  eight  or  ten  chil 
dren.  The  mother  and  children  had  been  freed  many 
years  before  by  deed  of  manumission,  executed  by 
their  master  in  his  last  sickness,  and  they  had  been 
reputed  free  ever  afterwards.  Soon  after  the  grantor's 
death,  the  device  was  started  of  proving  him  to  be  of 
"unsound  mind,"  and  thus  reclaiming  the  family  to 
bondage.  But  the  magistrate  who  prepared  the  deed, 
witnessed  its  execution,  and  took  the  acknowledgment, 
declared  that  he  stood  ready  to  testify  to  the  compe 
tency  of  the  grantor,  and  the  validity  of  the  instru 
ment.  Years  passed  away  and  he  died.  Immediately 
the  heirs  claimed  the  family  as  slaves  ;  and,  after  the 
loss  of  the  deceased  magistrate's  testimony,  proved  the 
grantor  of  "  unsound  mind,"  and  so  set  aside  the  deed 
and  were  adjudged  owners  of  the  chattels.  On  the 
ground  of  newly-discovered  evidence,  application  for  a 
new  trial  was  made  ;  but  the  family  becoming  alarmed 
lest  they  should  be  secretly  seized  and  sent  to  the 
south,  attempted  to  make  their  escape  on  board  the 
"  Pearl,"  on  the  night  of  the  15th  of  April.  Now,  sup 
pose  that  they  had  succeeded,  and  that,  after  arriving 
in  a  free  state,  they  had  been  seized  and  carried  before 
a  commissioner,  to  be  tried  in  this  "  summary  manner," 
without  even  waiting  for  a  crier  to  open  the  court,  and 
debarred  from  making  affidavit  that,  in  the  city  of 
Washington,  there  existed  evidence  of  their  freedom. 
I  will  not  waste  words  to  point  out  the  impossibility 
of  their  defence,  and  the  certainty  of  their  doom  !  He 


353 

that  hath  ears  to  hear  the  cry  of  the  oppressed,  let  him 
hear ! 

A  few  days  before  the  close  of  the  last  session  of 
Congress,  I  was  inquired  of  by  a  resident  in  Washing 
ton,  as  to  the  condition  of  a  family  held  as  slaves  in 
that  city.  I  found  they  were  free  by  the  laws  of  the 
District,  but  they  did  not  know  it. 

Sir,  throughout  the  Southern  States,  there  are  thou 
sands  and  thousands  of  reputed  slaves,  who,  legally, 
and  by  the  laws  of  those  states,  too,  in  which  they  arc 
held,  are  as  free  as  the  governor  of  Massachusetts,  or 
the  chief  justice  ;  but,  in  their  enforced  and  brutish  ig 
norance,  the  victims  do  not  know  it ;  and  should  they 
come  to  a  free  state,  and  be  there  hunted,  and  seized, 
and  carried  before  a  commissioner,  they  would  be  de 
barred  from  taking  an  oath  as  to  facts  which  would 
furnish  grounds  for  a  continuance  so  that  their  right 
to  freedom  might  be  established.  But,  under  such  ob 
structions  and  embarrassments,  liberty  could  not  be 
extinguished  in  a  sufficiently  "  summary  manner." 

According  to  the  constitution  of  the  United  States, 
all  criminals,  from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  are  to  be 
informed  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  their  accusation  ; 
to  be  confronted  with  the  witnesses  against  them  ;  to 
have  compulsory  process  for  obtaining  witnesses  in 
their  favor ;  and  to  have  the  assistance  of  counsel  in 
their  defence.  Yet  here,  always  in  the  case  of  an 
innocent  man,  oftentimes  in  the  case  of  a  free  man,  there 
is  to  be  no  previous  notice,  no  process  for  obtaining 
witnesses,  and  no  provision  for  counsel  ;  and  while  the 
court  is  forbidden  to  allow  delay,  without  good  cause 
shown,  the  party  whose  liberty  is  at  stake  cannot  make 
out  that  cause  by  his  oath  ;  but,  with  the  full  knowl 
edge  in  his  own  breast  that  he  is  free,  he  must  stand 
dumb  before  the  minister  of  the  law  that  puts  on  his 
fetters. 

I  will  not  dwell  at  any  length  upon  those  portions 
30* 


354 

of  the  act  which  affect  marshals  and  deputy  marshals. 
If  any  man  chooses  not  to  hold  office  under  such  a 
law,  he  can  decline  to  accept  it,  or  resign  it.  It  is, 
however,  clear  proof  of  wicked  legislation,  when  hu 
mane  and  conscientious  men  cannot  hold  the  offices  it 
creates.  But  the  fifth  section  contains  a  provision 
which  is  atrocious.  It  makes  the  marshal  or  his  dep 
uty  liable  for  an  escape,  whether  made  "  with  or  with 
out  his  assent,"  —  that  is,  at  all  events.  Though  the 
alleged  fugitive  should  disable  him,  though  the  enemies 
of  the  country  should  capture  him,  though  the  act  of 
God  should  strike  him  down,  though  an  armed  mob 
should  commit  a  rescue,  —  yet  he  is  still  liable. 

All  civilized  governments  have  statutes  of  limita 
tions.  Human  welfare  requires  that  claims  which  have 
long  been  voluntarily  acquiesced  in,  should  not  be  re 
vived.  Hence  our  laws  bar  a  right  of  action,  other 
wise  incontrovertible,  after  that  tacit  abandonment  of 
which  the  mere  lapse  of  time  is  proof.  Personal  rights 
are  most  generally  abandoned  by  a  six  years'  neglect 
to  enforce  them.  Even  real  estate  may  be  held,  by 
twenty  years'  quiet  possession,  without  other  title. 
Crimes  partake  of  this  exemption.  With  the  single 
exception  of  murder,  all  crimes  are  barred  in  Massa 
chusetts  by  a  six  years'  delay  to  prosecute.  But  the 
Fugitive  Slave  act  knows  no  mercy  or  compassion  of 
this  kind.  Unrelentingly  it  fastens  its  clutch  upon  all 
cases.  While  life  lasts,  its  fangs  strike  into  the  flesh. 
The  alleged  slave  may  have  been  amongst  us  for  fifty 
years  ;  he  may  have  earned  property,  be  married,  and 
surrounded  by  children.  It  is  all  the  same.  The  in 
exorable  certificate  of  a  commissioner  remands  him  to 
bondage  and  despair. 

The  act  not  only  remands  him  to  bondage,  but, 
under  circumstances  to  which  there  will  be  few  ex 
ceptions,  it  orders  that  he  be  sent  home  at  the  public 
expense.  The  constitution  says,  he  shall  be  "  delivered 


355 

up. "  There  the  obligation  of  that  instrument  ceases. 
It  is  only  the  law  that  adds,  he  shall  be  carried 
back.  You  and  I,  sir,  must  help  pay  the  costs  of 
sending  a  fellow-being  into  bondage  ;  when  we  are 
under  no  more  constitutional  obligation  to  do  so,  than 
to  pay  the  expenses  of  a  slave  dealer  who  ships  his 
cargoes  direct  from  Africa. 

But  the  bill  has  become  a  law,  and  the  practical 
question  now  is,  how  can  the  country  be  exculpated 
from  the  crime,  and  the  dishonor.  For  myself,  I  do 
not  adopt  the  doctrine  of  forcible  nullification.  I  trust 
I  shall  never  join  a  mob  to  resist  a  law,  until  I  am 
ready  for  revolution.  The  only  true  and  enduring 
remedy  is  repeal.  Those  who  would  forcibly  resist 
the  law,  lose  half  their  motive  and  impulse  for  repeal ; 
for  if  we  abolish  it  without  repealing  it,  it  will  be 
likely  to  remain  upon  the  statute  book  an  eternal  mon 
ument  of  the  nation's  disgrace.  Let  effort  never  cease, 
until  the  jury  trial  be  obtained. 

But  this  view  of  civil  duty  applies  only  to  the  citi 
zen.  It  does  not  touch  the  fugitive.  One  liberty  the 
slave  always  has,  — whenever  he  deems  it  expedient, 
he  may  re-clothe  himself  in  the  rights  which  God  and 
nature  gave  him,  and  \vhich,  though  they  may  be 
ravished  from  him,  can  never  be  destroyed. 

Until  repeal,  however,  there  is  one  opening  for  hope. 
If,  as  is  said  by  Mr.  Crittenden,  in  the  opinion  already 
cited,  "  Congress  has  constituted  a  tribunal  with  exclu 
sive  jurisdiction,  to  determine  summarily,  and  without 
appeal  ;  "  and  if,  as  he  further  says,  "  the  judgment  of 
every  tribunal  of  exclusive  jurisdiction,  where  no  ap 
peal  lies,  is  of  necessity  conclusive  upon  every  oilier 
tribunal,  AND  THEREFORE  THE  JUDGMENT  OB'  THE 

TRIBUNAL     CREATED     BY    THIS    ACT    IS    CONCLUSIVE     UPON 

ALL  TRIBUNALS  ;  "  then  the  whole  case  in  all  its  bearings 
and  relations,  its  sources  and  its  issues,  comes  before 
the  commissioner ;  not  even  the  supreme  court  of  the 


356 

United  States  can  interfere  with  him  ;  and  the  first 
question  for  him  to  "  hear  and  determine  "  is,  whether 
in  truth  there  be  any  such  law,  whether  the  whole 
disgraceful  enactment  be  not  unconstitutional  and  void  ; 
and,  therefore,  whether  his  first  and  only  duty  be  not 
to  dismiss  the  proceedings,  and  to  "  let  the  captive  go 
free."  I  am  not  without  hope  that  such  will  be  the 
result  ;  and  thus,  that  many  conscientious  and  law- 
abiding  men  will  be  relieved  from  the  moral  anxiety 
and  conflict  which  now  oppresses  their  minds. 
Very  truly,  your  .obedient  servant, 

HORACE   MANN. 


357 


SPEECH 

DELIVERED  AT  DEDHAM,  NOVEMBER  6,  1850,  BY  SPECIAL  RE 
QUEST  OF  A  CONVENTION  OF  WHIG  VOTERS  OF  THE  EIGHTH 
CONGRESSIONAL  DISTRICT. 

GENTLEMEN  AND  FELLOW-CITIZENS  ; 

Having  been  specially  invited  to  appear  before  this 
meeting,  and  address  it,  my  friend  Mr.  Russell  has 
introduced  me  to  you  with  many  kind  words  ;  and  he 
has  emphatically  announced  me  as  "your  old  friend." 
By  so  doing,  gentlemen,  he  has  touched  a  living  chord 
in  my  heart  ;  for,  as  I  look  around  me,  I  see  many 
familiar  and  dear  faces,  and  am  reminded  that,  in  this 
town,  I  spent  some  of  the  happiest  years  of  my  life. 
The  sight  of  every  object  around  me  awakens  remem 
brances  of  home.  Right  opposite  to  us  is  the  court 
house,  in  whose  forum  my  feeble  voice  was  first 
raised,  and  where,  I  thank  God,  it  was  never  raised  in 
behalf  of  the  oppressor,  nor  on  the  side  of  any  cause 
which  I  believed  to  be  wrong.  Around  this  church 
in  which  we  are  assembled  are  the  streets  where  I 
used  to  walk,  there  is  the  pew  where  I  used  to  sit,  and 
all  around  me  are  persons  whom,  for  years,  I  saw  daily 
and  knew  intimately,  and  knew  them  only  to  respect. 
I  feel  assured  that  I  do  meet  "old  friends,"  —  true 
men,  who  carry  their  hearts  in  their  hands,  and  whose 
lives  are  anchored  to  their  convictions  of  duty. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  not  without  embarrassment  that  I 
address  you.  Yet  I  might  plead  a  high  example  for 
my  course,  if  I  were  worthy,  in  any  respect,  to  mention 
myself  in  connection  with  my  venerated  predecessor, 


358 

who  has  made  the  past  history  of  his  country  so  lumi 
nous  with  his  wisdom  and  purity,  and  the  name  of 
this  district  which  he  represented  so  honored  and 
memorable.  Would  to  God  I  could  carry  you  to  some 
Pisgah  height,  and  show  you,  under  one  view,  the 
past,  the  present,  and  the  future,  as  he  was  wont  to 
do,  when,  as  was  his  custom,  he  used  to  address  you 
on  those  great  topics  which  employed  his  energies, — 
on  the  principles  by  which  you  ought  to  be  guided, 
and  on  the  dangers  to  which  you  were  exposed. 

We  have"  fallen,  gentleman,  on  momentous  times. 
Great  events  have  occurred,  in  rapid  succession,  both 
in  this  and  in  the  other  hemisphere.  There  seems  to 
have  been  a  grand  upheaving  of  the  elements  of  soci 
ety  from  its  deep  foundations.  We  have  been  so  often 
astonished  and  amazed,  by  shock  after  shock,  and  con 
vulsion  after  convulsion,  that  I  fear  we  are  beginning 
to  lose  our  moral  sensibility  to  political  catastrophes, 
however  grand  or  fatal  they  may  be. 

You  know  there  is  a  spot  near  the  Mississippi  River 
famous  for  the  frequency  of  its  earthquakes.  A  gen 
tleman  who  visited  there  some  years  ago,  told  me  that 
soon  after  entering  a  hotel,  at  a  place  called  New 
Madrid,  his  attention  was  suddenly  arrested  by  the 
rattling  of  the  crockery,  the  jarring  of  the  household 
furniture,  and  the  shaking  of  the  chair  in  which  he 
sat.  Starting  up  in  trepidation,  he  sprang  for  the 
door.  "  O,"  said  his  landlord,  "  don't  be  alarmed.  It 
is  nothing  but  an  earthquake."  These  phenomena, 
it  seems,  had  become  so  common  as  to  have  lost  their 
power  of  exciting  alarm.  So,  I  fear,  it  is  in  regard 
to  the  late  commotions  in  Europe  ;  and  especially  in 
regard  to  some  of  the  marvellous  doings  of  Congress 
in  our  own  country.  From  their  astounding  character, 
and  their  rapid  succession,  I  fear  we  are  becoming 
insensible  to  their  importance,  like  the  inhabitants 
who  dwell  at  the  base  of  Mount  Etna,  whom  neither 


the  rumbling  of  the  mountain,  nor  the  lava  rivers 
which  pour  down  its  side,  can  awake  from  their  stu 
por,  until,  like  Pompeii  or  Herculaneum,  they  are 
buried  in  the  ruins. 

In  the  old  world,  things  seem  already  to  be  settling 
back  into  their  former  condition,  and  hopes  are  dark 
ening  into  fears.  In  this  country,  I  still  trust  that  we 
shall  redeem  something  of  the  past,  and  secure  the 
future.  Yet  the  events  of  the  last  few  months  are 
of  a  disheartening  character,  if  any  thing  could  ever 
dishearten  a  true  lover  of  his  country.  It  has  been 
my  fortune  and  duty  to  be  in  the  midst  of  these 
events.  I  have  watched  the  tide  of  battle  with  sleep 
less  eye  ;  and  when  Liberty  at  last  was  stricken  down, 
my  heart  bled  with  hers. 

I  believe  I  understand,  gentlemen,  what  you  wish 
me  to  do  on  this  occasion  ;  and  therefore  I  shall  en 
deavor  to  lay  before  you,  briefly  but  impartially,  the 
humble  part  which  I,  as  your  representative,  have 
taken  in  those  events  which  have  filled  the  hearts  of 
good  men  with  alarm. 

I  would,  however,  premise  a  few  words,  in  order  to 
show  how  we  have  come,  step  by  step,  to  the  fearful 
position  we  now  occupy. 

Very  early  in  our  history,  as  a  republic  established 
to  maintain  the  rights  of  man,  an  extent  of  territory 
was  acquired  equal  to  all  we  possessed  before  ;  and  this 
addition  accrued  to  the  special  advantage  of  those  who 
maintain,  as  the  first  great  article  in  their  creed,  the 
wrongs  of  man.  The  same  European  wars  which 
enabled  Mr.  Jefferson's  administration  to  purchase 
Louisiana  with  fifteen  millions  of  dollars, — a  sum 
mostly  paid  by  the  north,  —  brought  the  commercial 
interests  of  the  north  also  within  the  destructive  sweep 
of  those  contests,  and  the  non-intercourse  act  and  the 
embargo  were  the  consequence.  These  carne  upon 
New  England  at  a  time  when  commerce  was  her  only 


360 

resource.  They  brought  as  great  a  calamity  upon  the 
New  England  states  as  it  would  now  be  to  the  south 
if  their  whole  cotton  crop,  or  to  the  west  if  their 
whole  grain  crop,  were  to  fail  for  a  series  of  years. 
They  palsied  our  industry ;  and,  without  industry, 
men,  any  where  out  of  Paradise,  will  be  poor.  Upon 
the  back  of  this  calamity  came  the  war  of  1812, 
which  we  bore  as  well  as  we  could,  and  performed  our 
full  share  in  carrying  the  country  through  it,  though 
it  cut  off  our  very  means  of  living.  That  war  re 
vealed  a  lamentable  condition  of  things.  It  revealed 
the  fact  that,  notwithstanding  our  political  independ 
ence,  we  were,  in  a  commercial  sense,  most  deplorably 
dependent.  It  pointed  to  a  new  policy.  It  put  the 
country  upon  achieving  its  second  independence,  — 
its  independence,  at  least  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  of 
foreign  mechanics,  manufacturers,  and  artisans,  as  it 
had  already  achieved  its  political  independence  of  for 
eign  kings,  aristocracies,  and  ecclesiastics.  It  gave 
birth  to  the  American  system,  in  which  Calhoun, 
Lowndes,  Cheves,  and  Clay,  —  all  from  the  slave 
states,  —  took  the  lead.  I  mention  the  first  three 
names,  particularly,  because  they  were  from  the  state 
of  South  Carolina.  So  heartily  did  they  enter  into 
the  new  policy  that  they  took  their  seats  in  Congress 
clad  in  homespun.  They  said  they  would  exemplify 
their  principles  by  their  garments,  and  wear  them  out 
side  as  well  as  inside  of  their  bodies.  I  am  sorry 
their  principles  lasted  but  little  longer  than  their 
clothes,  —  one  suit  worn  out,  and  all,  both  without 
and  within,  clean  gone.  Even  Mr.  Madison  boasted 
that  his  coat  was  woven  in  an  American  loom.  The 
south  led  off  in  this  policy,  and  New  England,  whose 
capital  had  been  wrecked  on  the  ocean,  was  reluctantly 
compelled  to  follow  their  lead.  This  was  the  origin 
of  the  protective  tariff,  the  child  of  South  Carolina, 
though,  at  a  later  period,  adopted  by  Massachusetts. 


361 

It  was  not,  however,  until  1824,  that  New  England, 
and  Massachusetts  particularly,  gave  in  her  adhesion 
to  the  protective  policy.  Then  our  people  engaged 
in  manufactures.  The  streams  were  dammed,  and 
the  mighty  powers  of  nature  were  set  to  spinning 
and  weaving,  to  dyeing  and  printing,  under  the  guid 
ance  of  that  genius  which  had  been  kindled  and  nur 
tured  in  our  schoolhouses.  Those  establishments  were 
founded  which  have  produced  so  marvellous  a  change 
in  our  household  condition,  surrounding  all  with  so 
many  comforts,  and  filling  our  dwellings  with  so  vast 
a  variety  of  the  refinements  and  luxuries  of  life. 
Those  of  you  who  have  arrived  at  my  age,  and  are 
therefore  acquainted  with  the  condition  of  things 
throughout  our  country  towns  thirty  years  ago,  know 
that  the  change  is  almost  magical.  Though  opposed 
in  its  inception  by  the  cities  and  the  merchants,  yet  it 
has  promoted  their  prosperity  not  less  than  that  of 
the  people. 

In  the  year  1820,  a  national  question  of  a  great 
moral  character  arose.  The  south,  whose  policy  had 
before  secured  a  territory  as  large  as  that  of  the  original 
thirteen,  sought  to  extend  slavery  over  its  whole  sur 
face.  Missouri  applied  to  be  admitted  into  the  Union  as 
a  slave  state.  The  morality  and  religion  of  the  north 
thought  the  time  had  come  to  arrest  the  strides  of 
slavery,  and  they  opposed  the  application.  Earnest 
resistance  was  made.  The  battle  was  obstinately 
fought  ;  but  at  last,  the  north,  or  rather  enough  recre 
ants  of  the  north  yielded,  and  the  day  was  lost.  The 
south  bought  or  bullied  a  sufficient  number  of  the 
invertebrate  creatures  whom  we  send  to  Congress,  and 
triumphed  over  us.  This  was  the  first  great  surrender 
of  principle  on  the  part  of  the  north,  and  a  fatal  sur 
render  it  was.  We,  and  humanity,  and  all  that  is 
dearest  to  the  heart  and  thoughts  of  man,  might  have 
achieved  the  victory  but  for  a  few  cases  of  foul 
31 


362 

treachery  to  the  cause  of  freedom.  O,  that  the  retri 
butions  for  that  treason  had  been  so  terrible,  that  the 
coward  motive  of  fear,  if  not  the  angel  impulse  of  hu 
manity,  might  have  deterred  all  men  in  after  times 
from  ever  daring  to  repeat  it. 

The  next  great  struggle  was  in  1833,  when  nullifi 
cation  first  reared  its  hideous  head.  At  that  epoch, 
the  south,  and  especially  South  Carolina,  observing 
that  our  capital  had  been  too  deeply  invested  in  manu 
factures  to  be  withdrawn,  changed  their  policy,  and 
sought  to  reap  a  double  harvest,  —  both  of  the  manu 
facturing  system  they  had  introduced,  and  of  the  free 
trade  system  they  had  abandoned.  She  therefore  set 
about  to  strangle  that  offspring  of  protection  to  which 
she  had  given  birth.  Even  in  Virginia,  Mr.  Madison's 
coat  had  become  an  unconstitutional  coat,  and  the  idea 
of  American  woollens  so  wrought  upon  Mr.  John 
Randolph's  gentle  affections,  that  he  said  he  would  go 
a  mile  out  of  his  way  to  kick  a  sheep.  The  South 
Carolina  resistance  was  beginning  to  assume  a  military 
form.  Then  occurred  a  most  admirable  opportunity 
to  test  the  strength  of  our  government,  — to  learn  and 
know  whether  the  pillars  of  this  Union  are  made  of 
granite  or  of  pipe-stems.  We  had  a  clear  case  of  right. 
In  the  chair  of  state  was  a  man  of  Roman  will,  who 
would  have  rejoiced  in  the  opportunity  to  see  that  the 
republic  received  no  detriment.  He  contemned  the 
nonsense  as  much  as  he  despised  the  fraud,  of  the  cry 
that  the  Union  was  in  danger.  If  it  was  in  any  dan 
ger,  he  would  have  saved  it  in  such  a  way  that  it 
would  not  need  saving  again  every  twelvemonth.  But 
the  chance  was  lost.  A  compromise  was  brought  for 
ward,  by  which  South  Carolina  consented  to  a  sort  of 
armed  truce,  on  her  part,  provided  the  tariff,  though 
not  given  up,  should  be  tapered  down  almost  to  nothing. 
Though,  on  many  accounts,  I  have  a  high  respect  for 
the  author  of  that  compromise,  yet  I  regard  it  as  the 


363 

most  unfortunate  act  ever  done,  —  the  most  fatal  pre 
cedent  ever  set  by  this  government.  It  taught  the 
south  the  efficacy  of  clamoring  ;  it  taught  them  that 
there  are  cases  where  a  Bombastes  Furioso  is  as  pow 
erful  as  a  Julius  Csesar ;  and  it  taught  them  also,  not 
withstanding  all  appearances  of  solidity  and  firmness, 
of  what  a  delicate  nervous  tissue  a  money-bag  consists. 

When  that  compromise  law  had  had  time  to  reach 
its  legitimate  issues,  you  all  know  the  result.  A  whirl 
wind  of  bankruptcy  swept  over  the  land.  Its  ravages 
reached  even  the  humblest  portions  of  society.  The 
laborer  suffered  even  more  than  the  capitalist.  The 
latter  suffered  in  his  gains,  but  the  former  in  his  bread. 
All  classes  perceived  the  cause  ;  and  they  rallied,  al 
most  as  one  man,  to  that  tremendous  effort  to  change 
the  policy  of  the  country,  which  resulted  in  the  elec 
tion  to  the  presidency  of  General  Harrison.  Though, 
but  a  few  days  after  his  inauguration,  the  reins  of  gov 
ernment  fell  from  his  lifeless  hands,  yet  the  tariff  of 
1842  was  the  consequence  of  his  election.  This  re 
stored  the  drooping  fortunes  of  New  England.  Then 
it  was,  while  we  were  immersed  in  our  business  and 
our  money  making,  that  southern  politicians  addressed 
themselves  to  that  great  scheme  of  pro-slavery  aggran 
dizement,  —  the  annexation  of  Texas.  You  are  all 
familiar  with  the  details  of  this  transaction,  and  it  is 
painful  to  revert  to  them.  The  kid  was  seethed  in  its 
mother's  milk.  Northern  Democrats  cast  the  votes 
which  gave  Texas  to  the  south,  and  destroyed  our  own 
prosperity.  Texas  was  admitted  just  in  season  to  re 
peal,  by  her  votes  in  the  Senate,  the  tariff  of  1842,  by 
that  of  1846.  This  again  put  in  jeopardy  all  our 
means  embarked  in  manufactures.  Would  to  Heaven 
that  nothing  more  dear  than  pecuniary  interests  had 
been  sacrificed  by  that  measure. 

I  do  not  blame  the  south  for  seeking  an  equilibrium 
with  the  north ;  but  they  do  not  seek  the  true  equi- 


364 

librium.  If  they  would  sustain  themselves  in  a  com 
petition  with  us  in  economical  affairs,  they  must  en 
courage  labor  and  render  it  honorable.  They  must, 
all  of  them,  labor  as  we  do,  in  one  way  or  another, 
with  the  hand  or  with  the  head ;  or,  —  which  is  the 
only  true  way,  —  with  both  together.  They  must 
build  schoolhouses  to  develop  the  minds  of  their  chil 
dren,  and  churches  to  cultivate  their  morals.  If  they 
would  only  do  this,  and  not  attempt  to  carry  every 
thing  by  slave-begotten  votes,  and  by  adding  new 
states  to  beget  more  slave  votes,  they  would  soon  sur 
pass  us  ;  for  nature  has  done  vastly  more  for  them,  in 
soil  and  climate  and  in  all  the  means  of  earthly  pros 
perity,  than  for  us.  A  superiority  obtained  in  this 
way,  we,  as  lovers  of  human  happiness,  should  not 
repine  at,  but  rejoice  in. 

The  next  struggle  in  which  they  engaged  for  politi 
cal  aggrandizement,  was  the  Mexican  war.  It  could, 
indeed,  hardly  be  called  a  struggle,  —  the  north  so 
readily  and  ignorniniously  yielded.  They  wanted 
more  territory.  Texas,  already  gravid  with  future 
slave  states,  was  not  sufficient.  And  though  it  was 
yet  somewhat  uncertain  whether  Congress  would 
not  interdict  the  extension  of  slavery  over  that  coun 
try,  even  should  they  conquer  it  ;  still,  as  they  had 
always  triumphed  in  their  contests  with  us,  they  as 
sumed  the  risk,  and  trusted  to  their  future  prowess  and 
skill  to  monopolize  the  plunder.  The  territory  was 
conquered  ;  and  then,  perhaps,  the  most  important  ques 
tion  arose  which  has  ever  come  before  this  country 
since  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  The  most 
momentous  consequences  were  suspended  on  the  de 
cision  of  this  question.  We  had,  as  it  were,  a  creative 
power  put  into  our  hands.  We  had  the  shaping  of  the 
destinies  of  half  a  continent  intrusted  to  our  keeping. 
Our  authority  once  exercised,  the  act  would  be  irrevo 
cable,  and  the  doom  of  all  that  region  would  be  fixed, 


365 

as  by  a  decree  of  Omnipotence.  When  God  gives  to 
the  world  a  generation  of  children,  and  they  are  ruined 
through  parental  neglect,  he  gives  another  generation, 
chat  another  trial  may  be  made.  But  if  we  once  admit 
slavery  into  those  immense  regions,  comprising  all  the 
unsettled  residue  of  this  continent,  God  will  give  us  no 
new  continent  on  which  the  error  may  be  retrieved. 

Now,  on  this  great  question,  what  has  been  done  ? 
1  grieve  to  say  that  I  fear  the  battle  has  been  lost.  If 
not  lost,  nothing  can  save  it  but  a  vigor  and  an  energy 
on  the  part  of  the  north,  such  as  they  have  not  lately 
put  forth.  So  far  as  legislation  is  concerned,  the 
whole  battle  field  is  in  possession  of  the  enemy.  Let 
me  read  a  passage  from  one  of  the  acts  of  the  last  ses 
sion  of  Congress,  which  settles  this  fact.  By  the  law 
for  creating  the  territorial  government  of  New  Mexico, 
it  is  expressly  provided,  — 

"  That  when  admitted  as  a  state,  the  said  territory,  or  any 
portion  of  the  same,  shall  be  received  into  the  Union,  WITH 
OR  WITHOUT  SLAVERY,  as  their  constitution  may  prescribe  at 
the  time  of  their  admission." 

The  act  providing  a  territorial  government  for  Utah 
contains  a  provision  precisely  similar.  In  regard  to 
Texas,  we  have  gratuitously  given  her  a  right  to  form 
one  more  slave  state  than  she  was  authorized  to  do  by 
the  resolution  of  annexation.  By  the  third  article  of 
the  second  section  of  that  resolution,  Texas  was  au 
thorized  to  form  new  states,  not  exceeding  four,  of 
which  those  south  of  36°  30'  should  be  admitted,  with 
or  without  slavery,  as  their  people  should  elect,  while 
in  the  state  or  states,  (and  there  must,  therefore,  be  at 
least  one.)  which  should  be  formed  north  of  36°  30', 
there  should  be  no  slavery  or  involuntary  servitude 
except  for  crime.  But  by  the  act  of  the  last  session, 
for  establishing  the  boundary  of  Texas,  though  the 
United  States  buys  up  the  claim  of  Texas  to  all  the 
31* 


366 

territory  north  of  36°  30',  yet  it  authorizes  Texas  to 
form  as  many  slave  states  out  of  the  residue  of  her  ter 
ritory,  as  she  could  have  formed  by  the  resolution  of 
annexation,  both  of  slave  and  free.  This  is  manifest, 
by  the  following  provision  :  — 

"  Provided,  that  nothing  herein  contained  shall  be  construed 
to  impair  or  qualify  any  thing  contained  in  the  third  article 
of  the  second  section  of  the  joint  resolution  for  annexing  Texas 
to  the  United  States,  approved  March  1,  1845,  either  as  re 
gards  the  number  of  states  that  may  hereafter  be  formed  out 
of  the  State  of  Texas,  or  otherwise" 

Here,  then,  instead  of  three  states,  four  are  provided 
for,  with  full  consent  that  they  shall  all  be  slave  states. 
Now,  1  ask,  if  this  gift  of  a  slave  state  is  a  trifle  to  be 
thrown  in  like  the  value  of  a  small  coin  in  the  settle 
ment  of  an  account  ?  In  some  of  the  pro-slavery  pa 
pers  of  the  north,  which  have  professed  to  publish  this 
act  for  the  information  of  their  readers,  I  have  observed 
that  this  clause  has  been  left  out !  They  did  not  dare 
to  trust  their  readers  during  the  present  political  cam 
paign  with  a  knowledge  of  it. 

I  know  it  is  said,  by  here  and  there  an  individual, 
that  slavery  cannot  go  into  those  territories.  But  it  is 
to  be  remembered  that  all  the  south,  almost  as  one 
man,  dissent  from  this  proposition.  They  say  it  can 
and  shall  ;  and  is  not  their  opinion,  on  such  a  subject, 
of  greater  weight  than  that  of  any  northern  man  ? 
They  threaten  to  dissolve  the  Union  if  slavery  be  pro 
hibited  from  going  there.  Are  they  such  lunatics  as  to 
dissolve  the  Union,  because  we  assume  to  prohibit  what 
nature  has  already  made  impossible  ?  Slave  states  bor 
der  on  those  territories,  and  should  there  be  any  rush 
of  emigration  towards  them,  as}  by  the  discovery  of 
mines  or  other  causes  there  may  be,  a  cloud  of  slaves 
would  immediately  overspread  them.  If  it  be  said 
that  the  local  law  of  the  territories  prohibits  slavery,  I 
reply,  so  it  did  in  Texas.  Slavery  had  been  abolished 


367 

throughout  Mexico,  of  which  Texas  was  a  province. 
But  though  slavery  was  uo  longer  legal  there,  peonage 
was.  Hence  the  southern  planters,  at  least  some  of  them, 
when  about  to  remove  to  Texas,  indented  their  own 
slaves  to  themselves,  as  peons,  so  that  they  might  hold 
them  by  the  Mexican  law  of  peonage,  until  they 
should  become  strong  enough  to  pass  a  law  for  slavery. 
It  will  be  no  more  difficult  to  introduce  slavery  into 
New  Mexico  and  Utah  than  it  was  into  Texas. 

I  will  not  now  go  back  to  the  questions  which  agi 
tated  the  country  and  the  Whig  party  at  the  time  when 
General  Taylor  was  nominated  for  the  presidency. 
Whatever  I  may  have  thought  of  him,  and  of  the  pro 
priety  of  nominating  him,  it  is  but  justice  to  say  that  I 
now  believe  that  he  was  a  true  man,  and  an  anti-slavery 
man.  He  intended  honestly  to  carry  out  the  will  of 
Congress,  and  execute  the  laws  of  his  country,  regard 
less  of  slaveholding  dictation.  He  would  have  crushed 
the  first  movement  for  disunion ;  or  rather,  a  knowl 
edge  of  what  he  would  do.  would  have  prevented  any 
such  movement.  With  his  own  lips,  in  his  own  house, 
he  told  me  that  in  case  any  state  should  attempt  to 
nullify  an  act  of  Congress,  he  should  immediately 
order  a  naval  force  to  blockade  its  coast ;  he  would  al 
low  nothing  to  pass  into,  or  to  come  out  of,  the  rebel 
lious  state ;  and  in  six  months,  said  he,  it  would  give 
up  its  resistance  without  the  shedding  of  blood.  It 
was  President  Taylor's  plan,  as  you  well  know,  to  leave 
the  adjustment  of  the  slavery  question  to  the  territo 
ries  themselves  ;  not  that  he  was  not  prepared  to  have 
it  settled  by  Congress,  and  a  prohibition  imposed,  but 
because  he  saw  that  while  a  prohibitory  act  might  be 
passed  by  the  House,  it  would  certainly  be  rejected  by 
the  Senate.  He  therefore  threw  himself  forward  to 
what  he  knew  the  condition  of  things  must  be,  after 
all  the  ineffectual  attempts  at  legislation  on  the  subject 
had  been  made ;  and  he  adopted  that  future  condition 


368 

and  result  of  things  as  his  present  plan  of  action. 
Should  the  northern  members  of  the  House  prove  true 
to  their  constituencies  and  their  pledges,  they  would 
never  allow  the  territories  to  be  organized  without  the 
proviso  ;  and  the  fear  of  such  a  prohibition  would  ex 
clude  slavery  from  the  territories,  as  certainly  as  the 
prohibition  itself.  Slaveholders  would  not  venture 
to  carry  slaves  into  a  country,  where,  at  any  moment 
an  act  of  Congress  might  emancipate  them.  And  if 
slavery  could  only  be  kept  out  of  the  territories  while 
they  remained  territories,  it  would,  of  course,  be  pro 
hibited  by  the  state  itself,  when  the  condition  of  terri 
torial  pupilage  should  be  succeeded  by  that  of  state 
independence.  A  boy  trained  up  to  virtuous  resolves 
until  the  day  he  is  twenty-one,  will  not  adopt  all  the 
vices  the  day  after. 

The  recent  act  has  given  Texas  more  than  fifty 
thousand  square  miles  of  free  New  Mexican  territory, 
and  the  promise  of  ten  millions  of  dollars  in  fourteen 
years,  with  interest  at  five  per  cent,  up  to  that  time  ; 
which,  at  compound  interest,  makes  a  prospective  grant 
of  twenty  millions  of  dollars.  This  is  done  on  pre 
tence  of  discharging  debts  which  she  owed  at  the 
time  of  her  annexation.  But  those  debts,  at  the  high 
est  estimate,  do  not  exceed  seven  millions,  so  that 
a  clear  gratuity  is  left  to  her  of  at  least  three  millions 
in  addition  to  the  grant  of  another  slave  state.  The 
interest  of  these  three  millions  will  support  her  govern 
ment,  and  keep  her  supplied  with  the  means  of  fighting 
the  battles  of  slavery. 

There  is  something  most  extraordinary  in  the  claim 
of  Texas  to  the  territory  for  which  she  has  obtained 
so  extravagant  a  price.  Her  title  was  not  by  conquest, 
nor  by  purchase,  but  by  an  act  of  her  own  legislature. 
She  claimed  the  territory  merely  because  she  had  ex 
tended  her  legislation  over  it,  when  she  had  no  more 
right  to  legislate  for  it  than  for  Canada.  I  have 


369 

brought  with  me  for  your  inspection,  if  any  of  you 
desire  to  see  them,  a  series  of  maps  which  illustrate 
the  growth  of  Texas.  By  Humboldt's  map,  of  1804, 
Texas  contained  71,752  square  miles.  By  Tanner's 
map,  of  1826,  it  contained  108,097  square  miles.  By 
Austin's  map,  of  1839,  it  had  grown  to  179,567  square 
miles.  The  late  claim  of  its  legislature  was  the  enor 
mous  quantity  of  325,000  square  miles,  which  the  act 
of  Congress  cuts  down  only  to  237,321  !  By  its  own 
legislative  assumptions  it  grew  from  70,000  to  325,000 
square  miles.  By  good  husbandry,  in  this  part  of  the 
country,  we  are  able  to  make  greater  crops  grow  on  the 
same  land,  but  in  Texas  they  make  the  land  itself 
grow.  1  think  Humboldt  himself  would  have  been 
astonished  at  any  such  geological  theory  of  the  up 
rising  of  the  earth  as  would  enlarge  an  area  of  70,000 
square  miles,  in  an  inland  country,  into  more  than 
300,000,  in  less  than  fifty  years. 

But,  fellow-citizens,  slavery  is  already  in  the  territo 
ries,  whether  prohibited  by  God  and  nature,  or  not ! 
The  line  of  36°  30'  crosses  the  territory  appropriated 
to  the  Indians,  which  is  already  full  of  slaves.  When 
ever  the  Indian  title  is  extinguished,  slavery  will  be 
found  there  in  possession  of  the  soil.  Utah  has  slaves 
to-day,  and  I  was  informed  by  a  gentleman  chosen  as 
a  delegate  from  that  territory  to  Congress,  that  the 
Mormon  religion  prescribes  nothing  on  the  subject. 

I  need  not  now  dwell  on  another  act  of  the  last 
session, —  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  — because,  as  yet, 
I  believe  no  voice  in  Massachusetts  has  been  raised  in 
its  defence  or  palliation.  It  is  an  act  which  might  turn 
all  of  us  here,  at  this  moment,  into  slave  hunters  ; 
which  might  break  up  this  meeting  at  the  present  time, 
should  an  officer,  clothed  with  the  authority  of  the 
United  States,  appear  at  that  door  and  command  us 
to  chase  an  alleged  fugitive,  perhaps  a  native-born 
freeman,  over  the  graves  of  our  Pilgrim  fathers. 


Standing  here,  then,  before  yon,  my  constituents,  to 
give  account  of  my  stewardship,  I  have  to  say,  that 
with  voice  and  vote,  by  expostulation  and  by  remon 
strance,  by  all  means  in  my  power,  1  have,  to  the  full 
extent  of  my  ability,  resisted  the  passage  of  all  these 
laws.  Why  have  I  done  so  ?  Because,  in  the  first 
place,  I  felt  myself  a  moral  and  accountable  being  ; 
and,  as  such,  I  could  not  do  otherwise.  I  have  done 
so,  in  the  second  place,  because  I  was  your  representa 
tive,  and  believed  myself  to  be  acting  in  conformity  with 
your  wishes,  with  the  wishes  of  the  Whig  party  of 
Massachusetts,  and  of  my  constituents  generally.  Have 
I  been  mistaken  ?  [A  volley  of  noes.] 

To  ascertain  what  were  the  wishes  of  the  Whig 
party,  and  of  those  who  put  me  in  nomination,  I 
shall  refer  you  to  a  series  of  the  resolutions  of  con 
ventions,  and  of  the  declarations  of  the  best  accredited 
authorities  of  that  party,  on  this  subject,  for  years  past. 
The  following  are  among  the  resolutions  of  the  Whig 
convention  which  assembled  in  this  town,  March.  1848, 
to  nominate  a  successor  to  the  Hon.  John  duincy 
Adams.  They  were  unanimously  adopted  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  the  members  of  this  convention,  met  to 
gether  for  the  purpose  of  nominating  a  candidate  to  supply 
the  vacancy  existing  in  the  eighth  congressional  district,  mourn, 
in  common  with  the  state  and  the  nation,  the  event  which 
has  deprived  them  of  the  services  of  that  eminent  son  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  whose  voice  was  ever  raised  in  the  cause  of  free 
dom,  whose  vast  and  varied  powers,  more  than  those  of  any 
other  statesman  of  his  time,  were  devoted  to  the  service  of 
his  country,  shedding  light  upon  her  institutions,  and  leading 
her  on  in  the  path  of  duty,  prosperity,  and  glory. 

"  Resolved,  That  the  loss  of  his  services  in  the  hails  of 
Congress,  at  this  time,  is  the  more  deeply  to  be  deplored,  when 
his  great  weight  of  character,  his  influence,  his  talents,  his 
wisdom,  his  zeal,  and  indomitable  energy  would  have  been  so 
benignly  felt  upon  the  great  questions  of  freedom  and  slavery, 
which  are  to  be  discussed  and  settled  for  our  newly-acquired 


371 

domain,  stretching  from  the  Gulf  of   Mexico  to  the  Pacific 
Ocean. 

4'  Resolved,  That  it  behooves  us  to  unite  upon  a  candidate 
to  represent  this  district  upon  the  floor  of  Congress,  whose 
principles  shall  be  in  consonance  with  those  of  his  predecessor, 
whose  fidelity  to  the  great  principles  of  human  freedom  shall 
be  unwavering,  whose  voice  and  vote  shall  on  all  occasions  be 
exercised  in  extending  and  securing  liberty  to  the  human 


In  September,  1848,  the  Whig  state  convention  of 
Massachusetts  met  at  Worcester,  when  the  following 
resolution,  among  others,  reported  by  the  Hon.  Joseph 
Bell,  of  Boston,  since  then  president  of  the  Massachusetts 
Senate,  was  unanimously  adopted  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  being  impressed  with  a  profound  sense 
of  our  responsibility,  as  the  representatives  of  the  Whigs  of 
Massachusetts,  that  responsibility  which  attaches  to  our  words, 
acts,  and  votes,  — we  cannot  fail,  on  this  occasion,  as  we  have 
never  failed  on  any  other  general  assemblage  of  the  Whigs 
of  Massachusetts,  to  record,  in  the  most  solemn  and  deliber 
ate  manner,  our  unqualified  opposition  to  any  extension  of  the 
institution  of  slavery  into  our  territory,  or  any  acquisitions  of 
territory,  for  the  purpose  of  such  extension.  On  this  question, 
the  voice  of  the  Whigs  of  Massachusetts  has  been  unwaver 
ing  and  uniform,  and  never  has  that  voice  spoken  with  higher 
eloquence  and  power  than  when  our  distinguished  senator  in 
Congress,  speaking  for  himself,  and  for  the  whole  people  of 
the  commonwealth,  said,  4 1  consent  to  no  further  extension 
of  the  area  of  slavery  in  the  United  States,  or  to  the  further 
increase  of  slavery  representation  in  the  House  of  Represen 
tatives.1  " 

In  September  of  the  same  year,  another  Whig  con 
vention  assembled  at  this  place,  to  nominate  a  candi 
date  for  the  Thirty-first  Congress.  My  views,  as  re 
corded  by  my  votes  on  all  the  questions  of  slavery,  and 
as  expressed  in  my  speech,  delivered  on  the  30th  of 
the  preceding  June;  were  then  before  the  people.  That 


372 

convention,  among  other  resolutions,  passed  the  follow 
ing,  by  acclamation  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  we  cordially  approve  of  the  course  of 
the  Hon.  Horace  Mann,  and  that  his  position  in  regard  \ofree 
principles,  free  labor,  and  free  speech,  sustained  with  such 
signal  ability,  was  but  a  satisfactory  fulfilment  of  the  expec 
tations  that  we  had  when  we  nominated  him  to  succeed  the  il 
lustrious  Adams.  Regarding  the  past  as  the  best  and  only 
honorable  pledge  of  the  future,  this  convention  unanimously 
present  his  name  to  the  people  of  this  district  for  reelection." 

At  the  Whig  state  convention,  held  at  Springfield, 
September  29th,  1847,  Mr.  Webster  said  he  would  con 
sent  to  no  extension  of  slavery.  Are  not  the  laws 
which  I  have  just  read  a  consent? — full  consent? 
He  claimed  the  Wilmot  proviso  as  his  "  thunder,"  and 
said  it  had  been  stolen  from  him.  Whether  stolen 
from  him,  or  not.  I  do  not  decide.  He  certainly  seems 
to  have  lost  possession  of  it ;  for  we  now  find  him  thun 
dering  on  the  other  side  ;  —  yes,  from  the  high  Olympus 
to  which  the  votes  of  Massachusetts  had  elevated  him,  he 
has  hurled  his  bolts  against  the  dearest  interests  of  his 
benefactors.  But  it  is  said  we  have  registered  these 
acts  of  pro-slavery  legislation,  at  the  dictation  of  the 
south,  in  order  to  save  the  Union.  When  Governor 
Davis  was  once  asked  to  surrender  the  rights  of  hu 
manity  to  save  the  Union,  he  retorted  with  the  ques 
tion,  "  How  many  times  have  we  got  to  save  the 
Union  ?  "  If  we  yield  to  every  threat  of  disunion,  we 
shall  have  to  save  the  Union  whenever  any  factious 
and  unprincipled  member  of  it  shall  threaten  resistance 
to  the  laws.  Look  at  the  present  threat  which  has 
been  made  by  Texas.  What  resources  has  she  where 
with  to  oppose  the  general  government  ?  She  has  no 
funds  except  a  school  fund  of  $34,000,  which  her 
governor,  in  one  of  his  late  messages,  declared  to  be 
inviolably  devoted  to  education.  To  be  sure,  since 
this  cry  of  rebellion  has  been  raised,  he  has  said  that 


373 

this  fund,  which  could  be  diverted  for  no  useful  pur 
pose,  might  be  appropriated  to  the  treasonable  one  of 
resistance.  But  look  at  the  amount  of  this  fund,  — 
$34,000.  Military  men  tell  me  it  would  not  support  a 
single  regiment  of  mounted  rangers  more  than  a  month; 
and  all  the  more  settled  parts  of  Texas  are  at  least  one 
month's  marching  distance  from  Santa  Fe,  which  is 
the  nearest  point  of  attack.  There  was  never  any 
thing  more  ridiculous  than  the  threats  of  Texas,  that 
she  will  take  armed  possession  of  the  eastern  side  of 
the  Rio  Grande,  if  it  be  not  surrendered  to  her.  She 
cannot  even  protect  herself  against  the  Indian  tribes 
that  roam  through  the  regions  lying  between  her  and 
the  people  she  threatens  to  subjugate.  Will  the  dis 
affected  states  of  the  south  help  her  by  munitions, 
money,  or  men  ?  The  only  states  on  which  she  could 
place  any  reliance  are  Mississippi  and  South  Carolina. 
Could  a  military  force  be  organized,  and  then  inarched 
nearly  a  thousand,  or  nearly  fifteen  hundred  miles, 
across  the  country,  to  uphold  the  Texan  banner  on  the 
borders  of  the  Rio  Grande  ?  Were  expeditions  to  be 
sent  by  sea,  could  not  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
the  harbor  of  Charleston,  and  that  gateway  of  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  which  lies  between  the  capes  of  Flori 
da  and  the  West  India  Islands  ;  ay,  the  whole  Texan 
coast  itself,  be  blockaded  and  guarded,  so  as  to  make  a 
hostile  irruption  into  New  Mexico  impossible  ?  Talk 
about  Texan  resistance  to  the  government  of  these  Uni 
ted  States,  my  fellow-citizens ;  it  is  so  ridiculous  that 
nothing  can  be  conceived  which  is  not  less  ridiculous, 
and  which  would,  therefore,  by  the  very  comparison,  re 
lieve  the  supposition  of  a  portion  of  its  nonsense.  This 
surrendering  to  the  threat  of  disunion,  is  like  the  fool 
ish  mother  who  gave  her  boy  a  sugar-plum  to  stop 
swearing.  Presently  he  belched  out  a  stream  of  pro 
fanity ;  and  when  the  mother  asked  him  why  he  did 
so,  he  said,  "I  want  more  sugar-plums."  General 
32 


374 

Taylor  embraced  the  whole  subject  in  a  short  sentence 
when  he  said  he  was  more  afraid  of  Texan  bonds  than 
of  Texan  bayonets.  Their  bonds  have  been  ten  thou 
sand  times  more  powerful  than  their  bayonets  in  con 
summating  this  disastrous  compromise. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  conventions  of  the  Whig  party 
that  sentiments  have  been  expressed  wholly  incompat 
ible  with  the  great  surrenders  we  have  made.  Such 
sentiments  have  emanated  from  more  authoritative 
sources.  They  are  the  voice  of  our  commonwealth,  — 
the  repeated  voice,  reiterated  again  and  again,  through 
a  series  of  years.  Let  me  select  a  few  from  among 
the  many  resolves  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature, 
covering  the  time,  and  preceding  the  time,  that  I 
have  been  in  Congress.  The  following  was  passed 
in  1847:  — 

"Resolved,  unanimously,  That  the  legislature  of  Massachu 
setts  views  the  existence  of  human  slavery  within  the  limits 
of  the  United  States  as  a  great  calamity,  an  immense  moral 
and  political  evil,  which  ought  to  be  abolished,  as  soon  as  that 
end  can  be  properly  and  constitutionally  attained,  and  that  its 
extension  should  be  uniformly  opposed  by  all  good  and  patri 
otic  men  throughout  the  Union." 

Again,  in  1849,  the  legislature  of  Massachusetts 

"Resolved,  That  when  Congress  furnishes  governments 
for  the  territories  of  California  and  New  Mexico,  it  will  be  its 
duty  to  establish  therein  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
ordinance  of  seventeen  hundred  and  eighty-seven,  upon  the 
subject  of  slavery,  to  the  end  that  the  institution  may  be 
perpetually  excluded  therefrom  beyond  every  chance  and 
uncertainty." 

And  again,  during  this  present  year,  and  not  six 
months  ago,  the  same  general  court  passed  the  follow 
ing  resolve.  I  might  read  from  the  printed  volume 
of  the  "  Acts  and  Resolves  of  1850  ;  "  but  I  choose 
to  read  from  this  official  circular  which  I  hold  in  my 


375 

hand,  which  is  attested  by  the  secretary  of  state,  and 
was  sent  to  me  at  Washington,  as  to  all  the  other 
members  of  Congress  from  Massachusetts,  so  that  we 
might  be  informed  of  the  views  of  the  state  govern 
ment,  as  well  as  of  our  respective  constituencies,  on 
this  important  subject  :  — 

"Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Massachusetts  earnestly 
insist  upon  the  application  by  Congress  of  the  ordinance  of 
1787,  with  all  possible  sanctions  and  solemnities  of  law,  to 
the  territorial  possessions  of  the  Union  in  all  parts  of  the 
continent,  and  for  all  coming  time. 

"Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  in  the  main 
tenance  of  these  their  well  known  and  invincible  principles, 
expect  that  all  their  officers  and  representatives  will  adhere 
to  them  at  all  times,  on  all  occasions,  and  under  all  circum 
stances." 

And  yet,  in  six  months,  we  are  called  upon  to  sup 
port  these  laws.  Is  this  "all  coming  time"?  Are 
these  "invincible  principles"  of  the  Massachusetts 
Whig  legislature  to  melt,  like  wax,  when  touched  by 
the  breath  of  party  ?  They  notified  me,  under  their 
seal  and  sign-manual,  that  they  expected  "  all  their 
officers  and  representatives  to  adhere  to  them,  at  all 
times,  on  all  occasions,  and  under  all  circumstances." 
And  yet,  before  six  months  have  elapsed,  some  of  the 
very  men  who  voted  to  give  me  such  instructions,  or 
injunctions,  or  whatever  you  please  to  call  them,  having 
discarded  their  own  solemn  asseverations  of  principle, 
now  upbraid  me  because  I,  too,  will  not  be  recreant  to 
them.  Is  this  what  you  are  to  expect  from  men  whom 
you  have  elected  by  your  votes,  and  to  whom  the 
momentous  interests  of  millions,  and  the  honor  of  the 
country,  have  been  confided,  that  their  vows  should 
be  like  those  of  perfidious  lovers,  who  swear  "  eternal 
fidelity"  —  during  the  honey  moon?  We  cannot 
plead  the  excuse,  in  regard  to  these  resolves,  which  a 
certain  hearer  of  Whitfield  did,  for  appearing  unmoved 


376 

at  one  of  his  pathetic  discourses,  while  all  others  were 
melted  to  tears.  Wheti  asked  why  he,  too,  did  not 
weep,  he  replied  that  "  he  did  not  belong  to  that  par 
ish."  We  do  belong  to  this  parish.  These  are  the 
"  acts  and  resolves "  of  our  own  state,  fresh  and 
unsullied  from  the  mint.  We  cannot  deny  their  gen 
uineness.  If  we  impute  fraud  any  where,  it  must  be 
to  the  motives  of  those  who  passed  them.  Hear,  too, 
what  Governor  Briggs  says  on  this  same  subject,  in  his 
last  inaugural  address  :  — 

"  Entertaining  no  doubt  of  the  constitutional  power  of  Con 
gress  to  exclude  slavery  from  its  own  territories,  and  believing 
that  such  exclusion  is  demanded  by  the  highest  principles  of 
morality  and  justice,  she  never  can  consent  to  its  extension 
over  one  foot  of  territory  where  it  now  is  not.  If  the  other 
free  states  concur  with  her  in  this  resolution,  the  thing  will  be 
done,  and  consequences  left  to  themselves." 

Thus  have  the  Whig  party  in  this  state,  arid  its 
executive,  pledged  themselves  not  to  extend  slavery 
"  one  foot."  How  many  feet  in  the  six  hundred 
thousand  square  miles,  into  which  the  legislation  of 
the  last  Congress  permits  slavery  to  enter?  —  which 
legislation  the  Whig  party  is  now  called  upon  to  in 
dorse,  —  that  is,  how  many  myriad  pledges  do  they 
require  us  to  break  ? 

Let  me  now  quote  from  another  high  Whig  author 
ity,  —  General  James  Wilson,  of  New  Hamphire.  For 
many  years,  probably  no  man  has  been  considered 
a  more  authoritative  expounder  of  Whig  sentiment. 
He  has  been  employed  by  the  party,  or  the  organs 
of  the  party,  to  traverse  the  country  for  the  advocacy 
of  Whig  principles,  and  has  been  every  where  listened 
to  with  great  acceptance.  In  Congress,  he  spoke  as 
follows  :  — 

"  I  hold  that  Congress  is  bound  to  take  care  of  the  territo 
ries,  and  so  execute  the  trust  as  will  best  promote  the  interests 
of  those  who  may  hereafter  be  entitled  to  the  beneficial  use. 


377 

As  a  member  of  this  Congress,  I  feel  that  I  sustain  a  part  of 
that  responsibility,  and  it  is  my  desire  to  acquit  myself  wor 
thily  in  meeting  it.  I  desire  so  to  acquit  myself  that  my  own 
conscience  will  not  upbraid  me,  and  that  when  I  shall  pass 
away,  no  reproach  shall  fall  upon  me,  or  my  children  after 
me,  for  my  acts  here  upon  this  momentous  question.  I  have, 
sir,  an  only  son,  now  a  little  fellow,  whom  some  of  this  com 
mittee  may  have  seen  here.  Think  you  that  when  I  am 
gone,  and  he  shall  grow  up  to  manhood,  and  shall  come  for 
ward  to  act  his  part  among  the  citizens  of  the  country,  I  will 
leave  it  to  be  cast  in  his  teeth,  as  a  reproach,  that  his  father 
voted  to  send  slavery  into  those  territories  ?  No  !  O,  no  !  I 
look  reverently  up  to  the  Father  of  us  all,  and  fervently 
implore  him  to  spare  that  child  that  reproach.  May  God 
forbid  it ! 

"  I  have  said  that  it  is  characteristic  of  the  slave  power  to 
accomplish  all  of  its  political  purposes  in  this  government.  I 
must  now  say  that  the  power  and  influence  of  slavery  over 
the  action  of  Congress  is  impaired,  if  not  entirely  gone. 
[What  an  infinite  mistake  !]  I  make  this  declaration,  not 
because  I  have  any  confidence  in  the  politicians  of  the  day. 
No,  sir,  I  have  none  whatever.  The  politicians  are  just  as 
ready  now  to  betray  their  constituents  as  they  ever  have 
been.  I  am  sorry  to  say  there  is  evidence  enough  of  this. 
My  confidence  is  in  the  people.  They  have  taken  the  matter 
into  their  own  hands  ;  they  have  brought  -themselves  into 
order  of  battle  and  line,  without  the  word  of  command  from 
any  political  leader.  Here  they  stand,  with  front  rank,  and 
rear  rank,  and  rank  of  file-closers  in  position,  with  bayonets 
at  a  charge.  They  have  spoken  to  their  representatives 
in  a  voice  of  thunder,  and  warned  them  against  abandoning 
their  interests.  They  have  bid  them  do  it  at  their  peril. 
The  constituents  have  challenged  their  representatives  to 
betray  their  trusts,  and  skulk  and  retreat  upon  them,  if  they 
dared. 

"  And,  sir,  the  constituencies  have  spoken  '  upon  honor.' 
They  are  determined,  and  will  execute  their  purposes.  There 
was  a  time,  when,  if  the  slave  power  had  any  special  work 
to  be  done,  and  wanted  a  northern  man  to  do  it,  they  hunted 
him  up  from  New  Hampshire.  Little,  unfortunate  New 
32* 


378 

Hampshire  was  called  upon  to  furnish  the  scavenger  to  do 
the  dirty  work.  That  day,  thank  God,  has  gone  by,  and  it 
will  not  come  again  very  soon.  [Wait  a  short  year,  Mr. 
Wilson,  and  see  who  the  Hazael  will  be.] 

"  The  north  are  not  disposed  to  trespass  or  interfere  with 
the  rights  of  the  south.  Where  slavery  exists  within  the 
states,  the  northern  people  claim  no  right  to  interfere  with  it 
by  any  political  action  of  this  government.  The  people  ask 
no  action  by  Congress  on  the  subject  of  slavery  within  the 
states.  But  gentleman  need  not  ask  me  for  my  vote  to 
extend  the  institution  of  slavery  one  single  inch  beyond  its 
present  boundaries.  Did  I  say  an  inch,  Mr.  Chairman  ? 
Ay,  I  would  not  extend  it  one  sixteen-thousandth  part  of  a 
hair's  breadth.  I  would  not  extend  it,  because  it  would  be 
doing  an  irretrievable  wrong  to  my  fellow-man  ;  because  it 
would  be  doing  irreparable  wrong  to  those  territories  for 
which  we  are  now  to  legislate  ;  because  it  would  be  doing 
violence  to  nature  and  to  nature's  God  ;  and  because  it  would 
be  a  wicked  and  wanton  betrayal  of  the  trust  confided  to  me 
by  the  free,  intelligent  constituency  which  has  done  me  the 
honor  to  send  me  here. 

"  It  shall  not  be  in  the  power  of  any  man  to  shake  a  men 
acing  finger  at  me,  and  look  me  in  the  face  with  a  jibe  of  con 
tempt,  and  say  to  me,  in  the  insulting  language  of  a  former 
representative  from  Virginia,  [Mr.  RANDOLPH,]  4  we  have 
conquered  you,  and  we  will  conquer  you  again  ;  we  have 
not  conquered  you  by  the  black  slaves  of  the  south,  but  by 
the  white  slaves  of  the  north.'  No,  sir,  that  remark  shall 
never  apply  to  me.  Gentlemen  need  not  talk  to  me,  or 
attempt  to  frighten  me,  by  threats  of  dissolution  of  the  Union. 
Sir,  I  do  not  permit  myself  to  talk,  or  even  think  of  the  dis 
solution  of  the  Union  ;  very  few  northern  men  do.  We  all 
look  upon  such  a  thing  as  impossible.  But,  sir,  sir,  if  the 
alternative  should  be  presented  to  me  of  the  extension  of 
slavery,  or  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,  I  would  say,  rather 
than  extend  slavery,  let  the  Union,  ay,  the  Universe  itself  be 
dissolved  !  Never,  never  will  I  raise  rny  hand  or  my  voice 
to  give  a  vote  by  which  it  can  or  may  be  extended.  As  God 
is  my  judge,  I  cannot,  I  will  not  be  moved  from  the  purpose 
I  have  now  announced." 


379 

And  yet  this  same  General  Wilson  did  vote  for 
every  one  of  these  laws,  excepting,  perhaps,  the  last, 
which  passed  in  the  night,  —  fit  darkness  for  so  dark 
a  deed,  —  and  the  next  morning  he  was  off  for  Cali 
fornia.  How  can  such  a  man  stop  this  side  of  Botany 
Hay  ?  Now,  fellow-citizens,  did  you  want  me  to  dis 
grace  myself,  and  you,  and  human  nature,  too,  by  such 
an  act  of  flagrant  apostasy  ?  [A  crash  of  noes.]  Yet 
if  these  measures  are  adopted  and  sustained  by  the 
Whig  party,  and  if  those  men  who  committed  these 
nefarious  deeds  are  justified  and  upheld  by  you,  then 
how  are  you  less  guilty  than  General  Wilson  ?* 

Let  me  quote  a  passage  or  two  from  a  speech  deliv 
ered  by  one  of  my  colleagues  in  Congress,  the  Hon. 
George  Ashmun,  who  has,  I  believe,  usually  been 
considered  pretty  good  Whig  authority.  In  a  speech 
made  by  him  on  the  27th  of  last  March,  referring  to 
the  subjects  of  slavery  in  the  territories  and  the  recap 
tion  of  alleged  fugitive  slaves,  he  said,  — 

"  But  I  am  bound  to  say,  however,  if  the  south  persist  in 
uniting  to  demand  the  entrance  of  slavery  into  our  free  terri 
tories,  I,  for  one,  must  conform  to  what  are,  at  the  same  time, 
the  views  of  my  constituents  and  the  convictions  of  my  own 
judgment ;  and  if  I  am  driven  to  the  alternative,  I  shall  not 
hesitate  to  vote  for  the  proviso."  —  App.  to  Cong.  Globe,  1st. 
Sess.  3lst  Congress,  p.  401. 

"  While  I  desire  to  do  every  thing  which  may  protect 
the  rights  of  property  which -are  guarantied  to  citizens  of 
the  slave  states,  I  cannot  consent  to  sacrifice  the  rights  of 
liberty  which  belong  to  the  citizens  of  the  free  states.  To 
secure  both  these  ends,  I  see  no  other  mode  than  to  have 
those  rights  settled  before  legal  tribunals,  by  the  verdicts 

of  juries  and  the  judgments  of  courts When  a 

colored  man  is  seized  in  Massachusetts  upon  a  claim  that  he 
is  the  property  of  a  citizen  of  a  slave  state,  and  he  claims  to 
be  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts,  and  invokes  the  protection 

*  Mr.  Wilson  has  since  been  rewarded  by  the  administration  with 
a  lucrative  office  in  California. 


380 

of  the  laws  of  Massachusetts,  is  it  to  be  said  he  may  be 
summarily  sent  away  by  the  decree  of  any  one  magistrate 
without  the  privilege  of  vindicating  his  title  to  his  citizenship 
before  a  jury  of  the  country  ?  Why,  sir,  it  could  not  be 
done  in  the  case  of  a  horse  escaped  from  one  state  to  another, 
and  found  in  the  possession  of  a  citizen.  It  could  not  be 
taken  by  strong  hand,  —  by  force.  The  claimant  must  resort 
to  process  of  law.  He  must  sue  out  his  writ  of  replevin,  and 
the  title  of  the  defendant  must  be  tried  where  he  lives.  That 
defendant  may  be  a  negro  ;  and  surely,  if  without  a  trial  by 
jury  you  may  not  take  that  which  he  claims  to  be  his  prop 
erty,  you  can  hardly  claim  to  seize  the  man  himself,  and 
carry  him  away,  before  his  title  to  freedom  has  been  tested  by 
a  tribunal,  as  respectable,  at  least,  and  as  safe,  as  that  which 
settles  a  title  to  his  horse."  —  Ib.  p.  399. 

Arid  another  of  my  colleagues,  [Mr.  DUNCAN,]  even 
as  late  as  the  7th  of  June  last,  emphatically  declared, 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  as  follows  :  — 

"  If  territorial  bills  are  presented  for  the  government  of 
New  Mexico  and  Utah,  I  shall  vote  for  the  exclusion  of 
slavery  from  those  territories." 

Let  me  fortify  these  citations  by  another  from  one 
of  the  acknowledged  leaders  of  the  Whig  party,  — 
the  Hon.  Rufus  Choate  :  — 

"  On  all  the  great  questions  of  the  day,  but  just  slavery  ; 
on  executive  power,  on  internal  improvement,  on  the  protec 
tion  of  labor,  on  peace,  and  the  constitution,  we  mean  to 
remain  the  same  party  of  Whigs,  one  and  indivisible,  from 
Maine  to  Louisiana,  —  one  vast  incorporation  of  consentaneous 
feeling  throughout  the  land  ;  and  upon  this  question  alone  we 
always  differ  from  the  Whigs  of  the  south  ;  and  on  that  one 
we  propose  sirnply  to  vote  them  down."  * 

I  will  quote  a  passage  also  from  a  recent  letter  of 
the  Hon.  Zeno  Scudder,  late  a  Whig  president  of  the 
Massachusetts  Senate,  arid  now  a  candidate  of  the 
Whig  party  for  Congress,  in  District  No.  10  :  — 

*  See,  also,  ante,  p.  256. 


381 

"  I  was  at  the  Springfield  convention  when  Mr.  Webster 
said,  *  Not  another  inch  of  slave  territory  ;  no,  not.  one  inch  !  ' 
By  the  aid  of  his  remarks  on  that  occasion,  I  was  confirmed 
in  the  views  which  I  had  before  entertained,  and  have  as  yet 
seen  no  reason  to  change  them. 

"  In  1847,  I  had  the  honor  and  pleasure  of  recording  my 
1  yea '  in  favor  of  the  resolves  i  concerning  the  existence  and 
extension  of  slavery  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  United 
States,'  and  '  concerning  the  Mexican  war  arid  the  institution 
of  slavery,'  which  passed  the  legislature  of  last  year  ;  and  had 
I  been  a  member  of  that  body  at  its  last  session,  I  should  hav<> 
given  my  support  to  the  resolve  'concerning  slavery,'  which 
was  then  passed. 

"  When  I  recorded  my  4  yea,'  and  advocated  the  resolves 
of  1847,  I  did  not  suppose  them  to  be  idle  words,  written  out 
to  be  bandied  about  and  declaimed  upon  in  Massachusetts, 
and  be  laid  snugly  tnrny,  if  ever  I  should  depart  the  jurisdic 
tion.  I  supposed  them  to  involve  great  principles  of  human 
freedom,  which  were  to  be  applied  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  our  country,  whenever  and  wherever  the  time  and 
place  might  present  legitimate  opportunities  therefor." 

At  the  Whig  state  convention  held  at  Springfield  in 
1847,  a  resolution  was  submitted  by  Dr.  Palfrey,  "  that 
the  Whigs  of  Massachusetts  will  support  no  men  for 
the  offices  of  president  and  vice-president,  but  such  as 
are  known  by  their  acts,  or  declared  opinions,  to  be 
opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery  ;  "  and  Mr.  William 
Dwight.  then  of  Springfield,  is  reported  to  have  said, 
"  You  cannot  vote  for  a  candidate  not  known  to  be 
opposed  to  slavery  extension  ;  it  would  be  guilt." 

But,  fellow-citizens,  I  might  go  on  citing  authorities 
of  this  kind  until  sunset;  — nay,  until  sunlight  should 
come  round  again,  and  still  leave  the  greater  part  of  my 
resources  untouched.  I  will  refer  you  but  to  one 
more,  —  a  resolution  passed  at  the  late  Whig  state  con 
vention,  only  a  few  days  ago,  which  was  as  follows  :  — 

"  Resolved,  That  Massachusetts  avows  her  unalterable  de 
termination  to  maintain  all  the  principles  and  purposes  she 


382 

has  in  times  past  affirmed,  and  reaffirmed,  in  relation  to  the 
extension  of  slavery ;  and  the  measure  of  success  which  has 
attended  her  exertions  is  a  new  incentive  to  continue  and 
persevere  in  all  constitutional  efforts,  till  the  great  and  good 
work  shall  be  accomplished  and  perfected." 

And  now,  gentlemen,  let  me  ask  you  whether  my 
action  has  been  in  accordance  with  these  sentiments, 
as  expressed  by  the  highest  acts  of  the  party  and  the 
most  solemn  resolutions  of  the  state  ?  [An  acclamation 
of  yeas.] 

Here,  fellow-citizens,  I  come  to  the  test  question  : 
Did  we,  as  true  Whigs,  and  as  honorable  men,  make  all 
these  declarations  in  sincerity,  meaning  to  stand  by 
them  to  the  end  ;  or  was  it  done,  from  time  to  time,  to 
beguile  a  portion  of  our  fellow-citizens  of  their  votes, 
on  the  vile  doctrine  that  "all  is  fair  in  .politics"? 
Were  we  frank  and  in  earnest,  or  were  we  hollow  and 
fraudulent  ? 

I  know  very  well  what  influences  have  been  brought 
to  bear  upon  us.  I  know  we  are  a  people  intent  on 
thriving,  and  on  worldly  prosperity.  Every  young 
man  amongst  us  sets  out  in  life  determined  to  better 
his  condition.  This,  to  me,  is  no  cause  of  regret,  but 
of  rejoicing.  If  the  spirit  of  thrift  does  not  transgress 
the  limits  of  honor  and  duty,  it  is  not  only  right  but 
laudable.  The  animal  wants  of  man  must  be  sup 
plied  before  he  will  develop  his  intellectual  or  moral 
powers.  Yon  may  find  individuals  who  will  be  vir 
tuous  amid  want  and  privation,  —  heroes  in  virtue  ;  — 
but  a  virtuous  community  in  rags  and  hunger,  you  will 
never  find.  We  must,  put  society  in  a  condition  of 
physical  comfort,  before  it  will  rise  to  mental  excellence. 
I  am  an  ardent  advocate,  therefore,  of  all  measures  tend 
ing  to  increase  the  wealth  of  the  country  ;  but  on  this 
ever-present  and  everlasting  condition,  that  it  is  done 
without  a  sacrifice  of  principles.  Any  enlargement  of 
business,  any  increase  of  profits,  any  augmentation  of 


383 

wealth,  gained  by  a  community  through  a  dereliction 
from  principle,  is  as  insecure  and  as  ignominious  as  the 
gains  of  an  individual  through  fraud,  embezzlement,  or 
peculation. 

For  the  purpose  of  rewarding  our  native  labor,  there 
fore,  I  arn  for  a  protective  tariff.  Perhaps  some  per 
sons  may  be  here  present  who  dissent  from  this  opinion  ; 
but  I  came  here  to  avow,  and  not  to  conceal  my  senti 
ments  and  acts.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  we 
must  protect  our  labor  against  foreign  labor,  or  our 
laborers  at  home  will  fall  to  the  condition  of  the  pauper 
laborers  abroad.  In  Manchester  in  England,  and  Glas 
gow  in  Scotland,  and  many  other  manufacturing  towns 
in  Great  Britain,  there  are  thousands  of  wretched,  de 
graded  female  operatives,  who  earn  scarcely  a  shilling 
a  day.  After  their  day's  work  is  done,  they  visit  the 
dram-shops,  roam  the  streets  till  midnight,  and  if  not 
invited  away  by  vicious  men,  they  huddle  by  scores 
into  filthy  lodging-houses,  where  they  sleep,  men  and 
women  promiscuously,  till  morning  summons  them  back 
to  their  tasks.  Now  where  labor  is  so  scantily  paid, 
fabrics  can  be  produced  more  cheaply  ;  and  if  these 
fabrics  can  be  sent  into  this  country,  free  of  duty,  they 
will  undersell  ours,  until  the  prices  of  our  labor  and  the 
condition  of  our  laborers  are  reduced  to  theirs.  Nothing 
is  left  to  protect  our  industry  but  the  cheaper  freight 
of  the  materials,  and  that  is  too  trifling  a  compensation 
to  be  of  any  account.  This  is  the  whole  philosophy 
of  the  matter,  alid  to  me  it  has  always  seemed  unas 
sailable. 

It  has  been  thought  and  said  that  if  we  would  yield 
to  the  south  on  the  slavery  question,  they  would  yield 
to  us  on  the  tariff  question.  We  have  surrendered  the 
slavery  question.  Have  we  got  the  tariff?  Have  we 
got  any  thing  but  disgrace  in  the  eyes  of  the  civilized 
world  ?  To  me,  it  seems  that  our  chance  for  a  tariff  is 
greatly  diminished.  For  the  majority  which  is  neces- 


384 

sary  to  enable  us  to  pass  a  tariff  law,  we  must  depend 
on  our  opponents.  By  our  yielding  to  the  south,  their 
party  discipline  has  been  immensely  strengthened,  and 
it  is  now  more  difficult  than  ever  to  obtain  their  votes 
for  any  measure  conducive  to  northern  interests.  Be 
sides,  they  now  say  they  will  retain  the  tariff  question 
as  an  open  one,  in  order  to  keep  us  on  our  good  behav 
ior.  What  have  those  now  to  say  for  themselves, 
who  beguiled  a  portion  of  our  people  into  the  delusion, 
that  they  might  safely  barter  human  rights  for  pecu 
niary  advantages,  and  have  left  to  their  dupes  both  the 
loss  of  the  advantages,  and  the  disgrace  of  abandoning 
their  principles ! 

But  an  appeal  is  made  to  us  to  ratify  this  surrender 
to  the  slave  power,  because  of  our  love  for  the  Union. 
And  is  our  love  for  the  Union  always  to  be  converted, 
or  rather  perverted,  into  a  pro-slavery  motive  of  action  ? 
I  join  you  all  most  cordially,  I  join  any  one,  in  avow 
ing  my  regard  for  the  Union,  and  my  resolution  to 
stand  by  it.  But  the  Union  ought  to  be  so  used  as  to 
extend,  and  not  to  abridge  human  welfare.  If,  in  or 
der  to  maintain  the  Union,  we  must  sacrifice  all  the 
great  objects  for  which  the  Union  was  formed,  —  the 
establishment  of  justice,  the  promotion  of  the  general 
welfare,  and  the  securing  of  the  blessings  of  liberty  to 
ourselves  and  our  posterity,  —  then  the  Union  no  longer 
represents  a  beneficent  divinity  but  a  foul  Dagon,  and 
is  worthy  to  be  broken  in  pieces.  A  Union  which 
must  be  secured  by  such  sacrifices  as  have  been  lately 
made  in  New  York,  in  behalf  of  the  so  called  "  Union 
Meeting,"  abolishes  the  benefits  it  was  designed  to  se 
cure.  Eight  thousand  signatures  were  obtained  for 
calling  that  meeting ;  but  to  procure  them,  whole 
streets  were  scoured,  and  men  were  threatened  with  the 
publication  of  their  names,  and  the  consequent  loss  of 
southern  custom,  if  they  refused  to  join  in  the  call. 
Many  were  obliged  to  pay  hush  money  to  prevent  ex- 


385 

posure.  The  New  York  idea  is  slavery  and  free  trade. 
Here,  it  is  slavery  and  tariff.  Both  cities  cannot  get  the 
price  of  their  surrender  of  principle. 

No,  fellow-citizens,  the  more  we  yield  to  the  de 
mands  of  the  south  in  order  to  save  the  Union,  the 
more  we  may  and  must.  Their  longing  eyes  are  al 
ready  fixed  on  Cuba.  There  is  more  probability  and 
more  danger  to-day  that  Cuba  will  be  annexed  to  this 
government  within  five  years,  than  there  was  of  Texan 
annexation  five  years  before  that  event  took  place.  I 
lately  said  to  a  Louisianian,  "  You  will  soon  be  for 
making  a  slave  state  of  Cuba."  "  No,"  said  he,  li  we 
mean  to  make  two  of  that." 

Gentlemen,  I  have  already  occupied  your  attention 
too  long.  But  I  am  constrained  to  make  a  few  brief 
remarks  on  a  subject  I  would  gladly  avoid.  The  oc 
casion  of  your  present  meeting  is  known  to  all.  Two 
years  ago,  I  was  nominated  by  the  Whigs  of  this  dis 
trict  as  their  candidate  for  the  seat  in  Congress  which 
I  now  hold.  By  the  favor  of  my  fellow-citizens  of  all 
parties,  I  received  more  than  eleven  thousand  out  of 
about  thirteen  thousand  votes  cast  at  that  election.  I 
felt  assured  at  that  time,  that  I  agreed  in  all  essential 
articles  of  political  faith  with  those  who  gave  me  their 
support,  otherwise  I  should  not  have  accepted  the  office 
at  their  hands.  I  have  endeavored  faithfully,  and  ac 
cording  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  to  carry  out  the 
wishes  which  they  then  expressed,  and  which  they 
well  knew  that  I  held.  Yet,  during  the  last  week,  a 
Whig  convention,  (so  called,)  assembled  in  this  place 
to  nominate  a  candidate  for  the  thirty-second  Congress; 
and,  after  some  close  voting,  they  nominated  as  my 
successor,  the  Hon.  Samuel  H.  Walley, — a  gentleman, 
I  am  happy  to  say,  towards  whom  I  have  always  sus 
tained  relations  of  personal  kindness.  In  the  language 
of  the  day,  that  convention  threw  me  overboard.  Now 
it  is  known  to  my  whole  circle  of  private  friends,  that, 
33 


386 

as  soon  as  Congress  passed  these  pro-slavery  measures 
to  which  I  have  adverted,  my  determination  was  formed 
not  to  be  a  candidate  for  reelection.  I  resolved  to  re 
turn  to  the  people,  and  labor  at  home  instead  of  at 
Washington,  in  the  cause  of  human  freedom.  But  it 
was  soon  given  out,  in  certain  influential  quarters,  that 
I  should  not  be  returned  to  Congress  again,  and  that  I 
should  be  stigmatized  by  a  rejection.  Unsurpassed 
efforts,  as  you  all  know,  have  been  made  to  carry  out 
this  threat ;  even  the  Secretary  of  State  of  the  United 
States  has  made  it  the  occasion  for  a  practical  contra 
diction  of  all  he  had  ever  said  against  bringing  the  in 
fluence  of  the  government  to  bear  upon  the  freedom 
of  elections ;  and  the  proceedings  of  the  last  week's 
convention  were  the  first  instalment  of  the  penalty 
which  I  am  to  suffer  for  defending  human  rights  and 
unmasking  their  betrayers.  It  is  said  that  the  con 
vention  of  last  week  was  a  packed  convention  ;  that  it 
did  not  represent  the  wishes  of  the  people.  Decorum 
forbids  me  to  make  any  such  charge,  even  though  it 
were  probably  true.  In  a  few  days,  this  point  will  be 
settled  by  the  sovereign  of  us  all,  at  the  ballot-box.* 

But  two  or  three  points,  to  which  I  wish  to  call  your 
attention,  are  contained  in  the  address  put  forth  by  the 
meeting  I  have  referred  to.  Let  me  premise,  howev 
er,  that  I  take  no  exception  to  the  fact  that  my  acts 
arid  opinions  should  be  made  the  subject  of  examina 
tion  and  criticism  by  any  body  of  men,  or  by  any  man. 
It  is  better  that  animadversion  should  be  wrong  than 
that  it  should  not  be  free.  Like  Aristides,  I  would 
write  the  vote  that  should  banish  me,  rather  than  to 
fetter  or  control  the  voter's  will.  And  now,  having 
laid  down  these  principles  in  favor  of  free  speech  for 
others,  I  proceed  to  exemplify  them  for  myself. 


*  The  people  settled  the  question  by  electing  Mr.  Mann  by  a  ma 
jority  over  all  other  candidates Publishers. 


387 

The  first  charge  preferred  against  me,  in  the  ad 
dress,  is,  that  I  said,  in  a  letter  dated  on  the  3d  of  May 
last,  and  addressed  to  a  portion  of  my  constituents,* 
that  I  "sympathized  on  different  points  with  different 
parties,  but  was  exclusively  bound  to  none."  Upon 
this,  the  address  remarks,  "  If  we  understand  his  mean 
ing,  it  is that  he  cannot  be  our  champion  and 

defend  our  cause,  as  our  true  representative  should, 
whenever  and  wherever  called  upon."  No,  I  reply 
t<>  this,  I  will  not  promise  beforehand  to  be  any  man's 
"champion,"  nor  to  defend  any  man's  "cause," 
'•whenever  and  wherever  called  upon."  This  would 
be  to  proffer  championship  and  allegiance  to  men  and 
measures  whether  they  were  right  or  wrong.  If  any 
man  offers  to  vote  for  me  on  such  conditions,  I  deny 
him  my  assistance  and  disdain  his  support.  Perhaps  I 
do  not  know  what  I  was  made  for ;  but  one  thing  I 
certainly  never  was  made  for,  and  that  is,  to  put  prin 
ciples  on  and  off,  at  the  dictation  of  a  party,  as  a  lackey 
changes  his  livery  at  his  master's  command. 

Another  remark  in  the  address  is,  that  the  compro 
mise  measures,  so  called,  excepting  the  fugitive  slave 
law,  were  "  wise,  and  that  they  gave  to  the  free  states 
all  they  could  reasonably  ask."  What  a  stultification, 
my  friends,  is  this,  of  ourselves,  of  our  party,  and  of 
every  department  of  our  state  government,  for  the  last 
ten  years.  What  have  you  been  doing,  but  resolving, 
contending,  and  placing  your  words  and  deeds  upon 
the  historical  records  of  the  state  and  the  nation,  against 
the  identical  measures  now  declared  to  be  "  wise,"  and 
all  for  which  the  free  states  "  could  reasonably  ask  "  ? 
I  leave  this  point  with  a  single  remark.  The  address 
excepts  the  fugitive  slave  law  from  the  measures  it 
commends.  Before  another  year  is  past,  will  not  that 
most  execrable  act  in  modern  legislation  be  palliated 
or  adopted  by  those  who  voted  for  this  address  ? 

*  See  ante,  p.  237. 


388 

A  third  objection  to  my  position  is,  that  I  regard  the 
question  of  the  extension  of  slavery  into  our  territories 
as  paramount  to  those  questions  of  a  pecuniary  charac 
ter,  on  which  we  desire  to  obtain  the  favorable  action 
of  the  government.  Let  this  objection  against  me 
have  its  full  force.  I  admit  it,  in  all  its  length  and 
breadth.  I  do  regard  the  question  of  human  freedom 
for  our  wide-extended  territories,  with  all  the  public 
and  private  consequences  dependent  upon  it,  both  now 
and  in  all  futurity,  as  first,  foremost,  chiefest  among 
all  the  questions  that  have  been  before  the  govern 
ment,  or  are  likely  to  be  before  it.  When  temporary 
and  commercial  interests  are  put  in  competition  with 
the  enduring  and  unspeakably  precious  interests  of 
freedom  for  a  whole  race,  of  liberty  for  a  whole  coun 
try,  and  of  obedience  to  the  will  of  the  Creator,  my 
answer  is,  "  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
his  righteousness,  and  all  these  things  shall  be  added 
unto  you." 

In  an  address  delivered  by  Mr.  Choate,  in  1848,  he 
declared  the  slavery  question  to  be  of  "transcendent 
importance  ;  "  and  for  this  sentiment  he  was  univer 
sally  applauded.  Wherein  does  "paramount  impor 
tance"  so  differ  from  "transcendent  importance,"  that 
the  one  is  to  be  applauded  while  the  other  is  con 
demned  ? 

Let  me  call  your  attention  to  one  other  remark  in 
the  address,  and  I  will  leave  it.  It  suggests  that  my 
course  in  Congress  on  the  slavery  questions  has  been 
unacceptable  to  the  south,  and  that  we  ought  to  send 
a  representative  who  will  conciliate  them  and  obtain 
their  good  will.  Fellow-citizens,  do  you  suppose  that 
any  man  can  be  true  to  the  memory  of  the  Pilgrim 
fathers,  and  to  the  love  of  liberty  they  bequeathed  us, 
and  at  the  same  time  true  to  the  spirit  of  the  Cavaliers, 
and  to  the  wishes  of  their  slave-owning  posterity  ? 
Eighteen  hundred  years  ago,  it  was  said  that  no  man 


389 

can  serve  two  masters ;  but  the  cupidity  of  modern 
times  proposes  the  solution  of  a  problem  which  Christ 
declared  to  be  impossible.  My  opinion  is,  that  the 
cause  of  all  our  present  calamity,  and  of  the  enduring 
dishonor  of  the  late  measures,  is  this  very  desire  to 
conciliate  southern  favor,  instead  of  giving  a  manful 
defence  to  northern  rights. 

Finally,  fellow-citizens,  it  is  our  fortune  to  live  dur 
ing  a  great  historic  crisis  in  the  affairs  'of  the  world. 
This  is  the  age  of  the  useful  arts  ;  of  discoveries  and 
inventions,  which  are  filling  with  wealth  the  garners 
and  the  coffers  of  men.  It  is  the  age  of  commerce,  of 
profit,  of  finance.  One  part  of  our  nature  is  intensely 
stimulated.  Let  us  beware  of  the  effect  of  this  stimu 
lus  upon  that  nobler  portion  of  our  being,  which  no 
splendor  of  opulence  nor  profusion  of  luxuries  can  ever 
satisfy  ;  which  demands  allegiance  to  God,  and  justice 
and  humanity  towards  our  fellow-men ;  and  which 
must  have  them,  or  die  the  second  death.  We  may 
be  poor ;  but  let  us  deprecate  and  fore  fend  the  most 
calamitous  of  all  poverties, — a  poverty  of  spirit.  We 
may  be  subjected  to  great  sacrifices  ;  but  let  us  sacri 
fice  every  thing  else,  nay,  life  itself,  before  we  sacrifice 
our  principles.  I  commend  to  you  the  language  of  the 
good  Bishop  Watson,  who,  when  tempted  to  stifle  the 
expression  of  his  convictions  through  the  hope  of  king 
ly  patronage,  replied,  that  it  was  "  Better  to  seek  a  for 
tuitous  sustenance  from  the  drippings  of  the  most  bar 
ren  rock  in  Switzerland,  with  freedom  for  his  friend, 
than  to  batten  as  a  slave  at  the  most  luxurious  table 
of  the  greatest  despot  in  the  world." 
33* 


390 


SPEECH 

DELIVERED  IN  THE  HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES  OF  THE 
UNITED  STATES,.  IN  COMMITTEE  OF  THE  WHOLE  ON  THE 
STATE  OF  THE  UNION,  FEBRUARY  28,  1851,  ON  THE  FU 
GITIVE  SLAVE  LAW. 

MR.  CHAIRMAN  ; 

Some  time  ago,  I  prepared  a  few  comments  upon 
those  prominent  measures  of  the  last  session,  which 
have  since  arrested  the  attention  of  all  the  lovers  of 
constitutional  liberty,  and  of  moral  and  religious  men, 
throughout  the  civilized  world.  I  am  unwilling  to 
suffer  the  present  session  to  close  without  expressing 
the  reflections  I  have  formed;  because  I  deem  it  but  a 
reasonable  desire  that  my  opinions  should  be  placed 
upon  the  records  of  the  very  Congress  to  whose 
measures  they  refer. 

Does  any  one  ask  what  benefit  I  anticipate  from  a 
discussion  of  this  subject  at  the  present  moment  ?  I 
answer,  this  benefit  at  least :  that  of  entering  a  solemn 
protest  against  a  grievous  wrong,  and  of  placing  upon 
the  tablets  of  my  country's  history,  what  I  believe  to 
be  the  views  of  a  vast  majority  of  my  constituents,  in 
common  with  the  vast  majority  of  the  people  of 
Massachusetts. 

Some  of  those  compromise  measures  are  destined  to 
be  of  great  historic  importance.  They  will  be  drawn 
into  precedent.  When,  in  evil  days,  further  encroach 
ments  are  meditated  against  human  rights,  these  old 
measures  will  be  cited  as  a  sanction  for  new  aggres 
sions  ;  and,  in  my  view,  they  will  always  be  found 
broad  enough,  and  bad  enough,  to  cover  almost  any 


391 

nameable  assault  upon  human  liberty.  When  bad 
men  want  authority  for  bad  deeds,  they  will  only  have 
to  go  back  to  the  legislation  of  Congress,  in  1850,  to 
find  an  armory  full  of  the  weapons  of  injustice. 

Sir,  legislative  precedents  are  formidable  things.  If 
created  without  opposition,  and  especially  if  acquiesced 
in  without  complaint,  they  become  still  more  formida 
ble.  Now,  if  there  were  no  other  reasons  for  reviv 
ing  this  subject  at  the  present  session  of  Congress, 
this  alone  would  be  an  ample  justification, — it  fore  - 
fends  the  argument  from  acquiescence. 

When  several  of  these  measures  were  passed,  and  par 
ticularly  when  one  of  the  most  obnoxious  and  criminal 
of  them  all  was  passed,  —  I  mean  the  Fugitive  Slave 
bill,  —  this  House  was  not  a  deliberative  body.  Delibera 
tion  was  silenced.  Those  who  knew  they  could  not  meet 
our  arguments,  choked  their  utterance.  The  previous 
question,  which  was  originally  devised  to  curb  the 
abuse  of  too  much  debate,  was  perverted  to  stop  all 
debate.  The  floor  was  assigned  to  a  known  friend  of 
the  bill,  who  after  a  brief  speech  in  palliation  of  its 
enormities,  moved  the  previous  question  ;  and  thus  we 
were  silenced  by  force,  instead  of  being  overcome  by 
argument.  For,  sir,  I  aver,  without  fear  of  contradic 
tion,  that  the  bill  never  could  have  become  a  law,  had 
its  opponents  been  allowed  to  debate  it,  or  to  propose 
amendments  to  it.  For  the  honor  of  the  country, 
therefore,  at  the  present  time,  arid  for  the  cause  of 
truth  hereafter,  it  is  important  that  the  hideous  features 
of  that  bill,  which  were  then  masked,  should  be  now 
unmasked.  The  arguments  which  I  then  desired  and 
designed  to  offer  against  it,  I  mean  to  offer  now.  Those 
arguments  have  lost  nothing  of  their  weight  by  this 
enforced  delay,  and  I  have  lost  nothing  of  my  right  to 
present  them. 

Mr.  Chairman,  I  feel  none  the  less  inclined  to  discuss 
this  question,  because  an  order  has  gone  forth  that  it 


392 

shall  not  be  discussed.  Discussion  has  been  denounced 
as  agitation,  and  then  it  has  been  dictatorially  pro 
claimed  that  "agitation  must  be  put  down."  Sir, 
humble  as  I  am,  I  submit  to  no  such  dictation,  come 
from  what  quarter  or  from  what  numbers  it  may.  If 
such  a  prohibition  is  intended  to  be  laid  upon  me  per 
sonally,  I  repel  it.  If  intended  to  silence  me  as  the 
representative  of  the  convictions  and  feelings  of  my 
constituents,  I  repel  it  all  the  more  vehemently.  In 
this  government,  it  is  not  tolerable  for  any  man,  how 
ever  high,  or  for  any  body  of  men,  however  large,  to 
prescribe  what  subjects  may  be  agitated,  and  what  may 
not  be  agitated.  Such  prescription  is  at  best  but  a 
species  of  lynch  law  against  free  speech.  It  is  as 
hateful  as  any  other  form  of  that  execrable  code  ;  and 
I  do  but  express  the  common  sentiment  of  all  generous 
minds,  when  I  say  that  for  one,  I  am  all  the  more  dis 
posed  to  use  my  privilege  of  speech,  when  imperious 
men,  and  the  sycophants  of  imperious  men,  attempt  to 
ban  or  constrain  me.  In  Italy,  the  pope  decides  what 
books  may  be  read  ;  in  Austria,  the  emperor  decides 
what  books  may  be  written  ;  but  we  are  more  degrad 
ed  than  the  subject  of  pontiff  or  Ca3sar,  if  we  are  to 
be  told  what  topics  we  may  discuss.  If  the  subjects  of 
a  despotic  government  are  bound  to  be  jealous  even  of 
the  poor  privileges  which  they  possess,  how  sensitive, 
how  "  tremblingly  alive  all  o'er  "  ought  we  to  be  at 
these  threatened  encroachments  upon  freedom  of  speech 
and  freedom  of  thought.  I  think  that  those  who  say 
so  much  about  recalling  us  to  a  sense  of  our  constitu 
tional  obligations,  would  do  well  to  remember,  that  the 
very  first  article  of  the  amendments  to  the  constitu 
tion  secures  the  freedom  of  speech  and  the  freedom  of 
the  press.  By  the  common  consent  of  this  country, 
manifested  iti  all  forms  for  more  than  half  a  century, 
the  old  alien  and  sedition  law  has  been  condemned. 
Has  that  law  been  condemned  for  fifty  years  in  order 


393 

to  make  our  shame  more  conspicuous  by  its  revival 
under  circumstances  of  intolerable  aggravation  ?  Sir, 
I  hold  treason  against  this  government  to  be  an  enor 
mous  crime  ;  but  great  as  it  is,  I  hold  treason  against 
free  speech  and  free  thought  to  be  a  crime  incompara 
bly  greater. 

If  it  be  just  and  heroic  to  rebel  against  all  arbitrary 
invasions  of  free  thought  and  free  expression,  then  is 
it  not  proportionably  base  and  dastardly  to  utter  men 
aces,  or  threaten  social  or  political  disabilities  for  the 
unconstrained  exercise  of  these  birthrights  of  freemen  ? 
On  the  face  of  it,  it  must  be  a  bad  cause  which  will  not 
bear  discussion.  Truth  seeks  light  instead  of  shun 
ning  it.  He  convicts  himself  of  wrong  who  refuses 
to  hear  the  arguments  of  his  opponent.  It  was  well 
said  by  Montesquieu,  that  "  the  enjoyment  of  liberty, 
and  even  its  support  and  preservation,  consists  in  every 
man's  being  allowed  to  speak  his  thoughts  and  lay 
open  his  sentiments."  Wherefore,  then,  in  a  country 
hitherto  reputed  to  be  free,  are  we  told  that  discussion 
must  be  stopped,  and  agitation  must  be  put  down  ?  It 
seems  as  if,  when  a  freeman  debases  his  soul  by  lend 
ing  himself  to  the  defence  of  slavery,  God  punishes 
him  on  the  spot  by  demoralizing  his  own  nature  with 
that  spirit  of  tyranny  which  belongs  to  slavery. 
Wherein  consists  the  advantage  of  a  republican  gov 
ernment  over  a  despotism,  if  the  freedom  of  speech  and 
of  the  press,  which  can  be  strangled  in  the  one  by  ar 
bitrary  command,  can  be  stifled  in  the  other  by  obloquy 
and  denunciation  ? 

It  is  remarkable,  too,  that  of  all  the  "  agitators  "  in 
the  country,  there  are  none  more  violent  than  those 
who  are  agitating  against  agitation.  Throughout  the 
north,  that  portion  of  the  public  press  which  volun 
teers  its  influence  to  extend  the  domain  of  slavery,  and 
to  maintain  it  by  extra-constitutional  laws,  is  constantly 
provoking  the  agitation  it  denounces.  What  are  these 


394 

so-called  Union  meetings  in  northern  cities  but  an  ex 
tensive  apparatus  of  agitation,  —  a  piece  of  machinery 
to  manufacture  and  send  abroad  the  very  articles  which 
its  managers  declare  to  be  contraband  ?  Through 
public  assemblies,  through  the  public  press,  and  by 
correspondence  designed  for  the  public  eye,  they  are 
shaking  the  common  air  to  keep  it  calm ;  they  are  ag 
onizing  and  in  convulsions  for  repose  ;  they  are  vocif 
erating  to  maintain  silence.  In  the  most  clamorous 
days  of  anti-slavery,  there  never  was  half  so  much 
said  and  written  against  the  institution  as  is  now  said 
and  written  for  it.  Sir,  is  the  right  of  agitation  to  be 
monopolized  by  those  who  denounce  it  ?  Is  free 
speech  to  be  only  on  one  side  ;  and  is  it  one  of  the  of 
fices  of  free  speech  to  silence  the  sentiments  it  dislikes  ? 
I  think  this  is  the  second  time  in  the  history  of  this 
country,  that  an  attempt  has  been  boldly  and  un- 
blushingly  made  to  stifle  free  discussion  ;  and  I  do 
not  believe  the  fate  of  those  who  are  now  laboring  to 
accomplish  so  nefarious  a  purpose  will  be  historically 
more  enviable  than  that  of  their  prototypes,  who 
passed  the  far-famed  law  against  seditious  speeches 
and  writings. 

Is  it  not  extraordinary,  too,  that  this  interdict  on 
discussion  should  be  applied  to  a  subject  which  touches 
the  highest  interests  of  man,  and  calls  into  fervid 
action  all  the  noblest  faculties  of  his  nature;  which, 
more  than  any  thing  else,  tests  the  question  whether  a 
man  is  man  ?  We  may  discuss  the  question  of  bank 
or  sub-treasury,  of  tariff  or  free  trade  ;  but  the  only 
subject  too  sacred  to  be  approached,  is  slavery  and  its 
aggrandizements.  This  is  a  free  country,  except  when 
a  man  wishes  to  vindicate  the  claims  of  freedom.  All 
other  parts  of  the  temple  may  be  entered,  but  slavery 
is  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  and  whoso  lays  his  profane 
hands  thereon  must  perish. 

Sir,  how  comes  it  to  pass   that  an  institution  which 


396 

even  the  enlightened  heathen  of  old  pronounced  to  be 
iniquitous,  and  which  eighteen  added  centuries  of 
Christian  illumination  have  proved  to  be  the  sum  of  of 
fences  against  God  and  man,  should  now  be  protected, 
not  merely  by  constitutions  and  laws  ;  but  that  a  gen 
eral  warfare  should  be  waged  against  all  those  who 
would  restrain  it  within  its  present  limits,  and  keep  it 
from  arming  itself  with  new  weapons  of  oppression  ? 
How  comes  it  to  pass  that  this  should  be  done,  not  in 
the  despotisms  of  Austria  and  of  Russia,  but  in  repub 
lican  America?  Sir,  it  is  not  to  be  done,  and  cannot 
be  done.  Almighty  God  has  so  constituted  the  human 
soul,  that  while  wrong  exists  upon  the  face  of  the 
earth,  all  the  noblest  impulses  of  that  soul  will  war 
against  it.  The  order  of  nature  will  war  against  it. 
"  The  stars  in  their  courses  "  will  war  against  it.  Dis 
cussion,  or  agitation,  if  you  so  please  to  call  it,  is  one  of 
the  Heaven-appointed  means  by  which  truth  is  to  be 
spread  until  it  covers  the  face  of  the  earth,  as  the 
waters  cover  the  sea.  It  was  by  discussion  and  by 
agitation,  in  synagogue  and  in  temple,  in  distant  cities 
and  in  different  empires,  that  Christianity  was  carried 
from  its  cradle  in  Jerusalem  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
Did  not  the  disciples  of  Jesus  Christ  go  "  agitating  " 
from  city  to  city,  from  Palestine  to  Greece,  and  from 
Greece  to  Rome,  notwithstanding  they  were  impris 
oned  and  scourged,  flayed  alive,  and  burnt,  and  perse 
cuted  as  incendiaries  and  fanatics,  by  scribe,  and  Phar 
isee,  and  high  priest?  The  very  accusation  brought 
against  the  Savior  was,  "  He  stirreth  up  the  people, 
teaching  throughout  all  Jewry,  beginning  from  Galilee 
to  this  place."  The  subject  on  which  anti-slavery 
men  now  "agitate"  is  inferior  only  in  importance  to 
that  on  which  Christ  and  his  disciples  "agitated." 
Nay,  the  only  cause  why  Christianity  has  not  prospered 
as  it  ought  during  the  last  eighteen  centuries,  and 
why  it  has  not  already  overspread  the  whole  earth  with 


396 

its  blessings,  is,  that  LIBERTY  has  not  been  given  it  as 
a  sphere  to  work  in.  It  is  because  SLAVERY  has  existed 
among  men  ;  and  Christianity  never  will  and  never 
can  pervade  the  earth  until  the  barriers  of  slavery  are 
first  overthrown.  It  was  by  discussion  and  agitation 
that  the  prevailing  religion  of  this  country,  —  the 
Protestant  religion,  —  broke  through  the  double  pha 
lanx  of  civil  and  sacerdotal  power,  and  triumphed 
throughout  the  leading  nations  of  Europe,  under  the  in 
domitable  energy  of  that  old  hero  of  Wittemburg, 
who  did  riot  heed  nor  fear  that  prince  of  the  slave 
power,  the  incarnate  devil  himself.  It  was  by  discus 
sion  and  agitation  that  the  first  glowing  sparks  of  lib 
erty  in  the  bosom  of  the  Adamses,  of  Hancock,  and 
of  Franklin,  of  Thomas  Jefferson  and  of  Patrick 
Henry,  were  fanned  into  a  flame  that  consumed  the 
hosts  of  the  tyrant,  —  that  tyrant  who  sought  to  put 
down  this  dreadful  agitation  by  means  not  a  whit  more 
reprehensible  in  his  day,  than  those  by  which  certain 
leading  men  are  striving  to  silence  it  now.  Where  was 
there  ever  written  or  published  a  more  incendiary  and 
fanatical  document  than  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  ? —  a  torch  to  set  the  world  on  fire.  In  the 
present  century,  what  but  discussion  and  agitation, 
through  all  the  realms  of  Great  Britain  and  in  this 
country,  could  have  sufficed  to  extinguish  the  slave 
trade,  —  that  foulest  blot  upon  modern  civilization  ? 
No,  sir  ;  agitation  is  a  part  of  the  sublime  order  of 
nature.  In  thunder,  it  shakes  the  stagnant  air,  which 
would  otherwise  breed  pestilence.  In  tempests,  it 
purifies  the  deep,  which  would  otherwise  exhale  mias 
ma  and  death.  And  in  the  immortal  thoughts  of 
duty,  of  humanity,  and  of  liberty,  it  so  rouses  the 
hearts  of  men  that  they  think  themselves  inspired  of 
God  ;  and  not  the  mercenary  clamor  of  the  market 
place,  nor  the  outcries  of  politicians,  clutching  at  the 
prizes  of  ambition,  can  suppress  the  utterances  which 


397 

true  men  believe  themselves  Heaven-commissioned  to 
declare. 

The  President's  message  tells  us  that  the  compro 
mise  measures  of  the  last  session  are  "FINAL."  I  take 
the  liberty  to  say  of  that  declaration  in  the  message, 
with  all  due  respect  to  the  high  source  from  which  it 
comes,  that  I  adopt  the  sentiment,  that  those  measures 
are  final,  in  one  sense  only.  Their  substance  and  ob 
ject  were,  in  an  extreme  degree,  pro-slavery  and  anti- 
liberty.  They  marked  the  passage  of  this  government 
through  another  long  stage  in  the  gloomy  highway  of 
oppression.  They  furnished  another  argument  for 
those  who  despair  of  human  nature  ;  and  they  supply 
the  misanthrope  with  a  plausible  reason  for  hating 
mankind.  They  affixed  another  stain  upon  the  coun 
try,  and  set  in  deeper  shade  the  contrast  between  the 
theory  of  our  government  and  its  practice.  They  be 
lied  still  another  time  the  gospel  of  love  and  human 
brotherhood.  Once  again  they  defied  the  vengeance 
of  God,  who  is  no  respecter  of  persons,  and  who  will 
bring  the  sinner  to  judgment.  If  such  measures  are  to 
be  "final,"  in  this  sense  only  do  I  accept  the  proposi 
tion, —  that  they  are  to  be  the  last  of  their  kind;  that 
here,  at  this  point,  the  career  of  this  iniquity  is  to  be 
stayed  ;  that  here,  the  confederated  powers  of  ambition 
and  of  wealth,  —  of  those  who  aspire  to  office  and 
those  who  lust  for  gold,  have  won  their  last  victory. 
In  this  sense  only  do  I  accept  the  President's  declara 
tion,  that  the  action  of  the  last  Congress  on  this  subject 
is  to  be  deemed /?*a/; — that,  in  all  future  conflicts,  the 
right  shall  not  be  trampled  under  foot,  but  the  victims 
of  oppression  shall  triumph.  Base  as  human  nature 
often  proves  itself  to  be,  it  sometimes  manifests  a  di 
vine  resilience  by  which  it  springs  with  recuperative 
energy  from  its  guilty  fall. 

I  draw  no  augury  of  despair  from  the  calamity  that 
has  befallen  us.  It  teaches  whatever  there  is  of  virtue 
34 


398 

and  of  principle  in  mankind,  the  task  which  has  been 
set  them  to  do,  and  whose  accomplishment  God  will 
require  at  their  hands. 

It  has  been  said  by  the  Secretary  of  State,  in  a  late 
speech,  that  if  this  subject  be  reopened  in  Congress, 
the  friends  of  freedom  will  be  found  in  a  "  lean  and 
miserable  minority."  What  cares  my  conscience,  sir, 
whether  I  am  in  a  minority  or  a  majority,  if  I  am 
right  ?  Has  any  great  and  glorious  cause  ever  been 
started  upon  earth,  that  did  not  find  itself,  at  the  out 
set,  in  a  minority  ?  Did  Clarkson  and  Wilberforce 
open  their  twenty  years'  contest  with  a  majority  ?  or 
were  not  all  the  office-seekers  and  mammon-worship 
pers  opposed  to  them  ?  Did  the  resistance  of  the  revo 
lutionary  patriots  to  the  government  of  Great  Britain 
start  with  a  majority  on  its  side?  Did  the  Pilgrim 
fathers  resist  conformity  to  ecclesiastical  oppression 
because  they  were  a  majority  of  the  people  ?  Did  the 
glorious  band  of  reformers  count  on  majorities,  when 
they  defied  the  racks  and  the  flames  of  Rome  ?  What 
would  now  be  our  condition  if  the  prophets  and  heroes 
of  olden  days,  if  the  warriors  for  truth  and  the  martyrs 
of  liberty,  all  over  the  earth,  had  yielded  to  so  base  an 
argument  as  this,  and  had  followed  the  multitude  to  do 
evil,  instead  of  battling  for  the  truth,  though  it  were 
solitary  and  alone?  I  can  conceive  of  but  one  effect 
which  such  a  sentiment  must  produce  upon  all  noble 
and  truth-loving  men.  It  is  to  make  them  labor  for 
the  right  with  a  zeal  commensurate  with  the  infinite 
baseness  of  the  appeal  by  which  they  are  urged  to 
abandon  it. 

But  I  come  now,  Mr.  Chairman,  to  the  main  topic 
of  my  remarks,  which  is  a  consideration  of  the  charac 
ter  of  the  Fugitive1  Slave  law,  passed  on  the  18th  day 
of  September  last. 

The  objections  most  generally  urged  against  this 
law  are  of  two  kinds  : 


399 

1st.    That  it  is  unconstitutional ;  and 

2d.  That,  even  if  the  framers  of  the  constitution 
did  leave  an  unguarded  opening,  through  which  such 
a  law  could  be  introduced  without  a  breach  in  the 
structure  of  that  instrument,  still,  that  it  is  a  cruel  law, 
that  it  discards  all  those  principles  of  evidence  and 
forms  of  proceeding  which  have  been  devised  by  the 
wisdom  of  ages  for  the  protection  of  innocence  against 
power,  and  that  in  its  whole  scope  and  spirit  it  is  in 
conflict  with  our  fundamental  ideas  of  human  liberty. 

It  will  be  seen  by  this  statement,  that  I  here  accept 
the  constitution  according  to  its  commonly-received 
interpretation.  There  is  a  class  of  defenders  of  this 
law  whom  I  wish  to  meet  on  their  own  ground.  I  do 
not,  therefore,  object  here  to  the  constitution  as  they 
understand  it,  but  to  the  law.  However  much  a  man 
may  reverence  the  constitution,  though  he  may  make 
it  an  idol  and  worship  it,  yet  I  mean  to  show  him  that 
this  law  is  an  unholy  thing  in  its  presence.  I  object, 
then,  to  the  law  as  a  departure  from  the  constitution, — 
not  a  departure  towards  despotism  merely,  but  into 
despotism.  Admitting,  what  many  deny,  that  when 
the  constitution  speaks  of  "  persons  held  to  service  or 
labor,"  it  means  slaves,  and  admitting  that  it  provides 
for  their  reclamation  when  it  says  they  "  shall  be  de 
livered  up  on  claim,"  I  still  impeach  the  Fugitive  Slave 
law  for  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors  against  the 
spirit  and  the  letter  of  that  instrument. 

On  the  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  this  law, 
the  legal  minds  of  the  country  are  divided.  It  may 
not  be  easy  to  distribute  opinions  correctly,  on  this 
point,  into  their  proper  classes,  and  to  decide  upon 
their  relative  preponderance.  If  we  include  slave  own 
ers  and  those  whose  pecuniary  interests  connect  them 
directly  with  slavery,  and  especially  if  to  those  we  add 
a  strong  party  who,  from  political  associations  and 
hopes,  have  surrendered  themselves  to  a  pro-slavery 


400 

policy,  probably  the  number,  if  not  the  weight,  of 
opinion,  is  in  favor  of  the  constitutionality  of  the  law. 
But  if  we  gather  the  opinions  of  disinterested  and  un 
biased  men ;  of  those  who  have  no  money  to  make  or 
office  to  hope  for  through  the  triumph  of  the  law,  then 
I  think  the  preponderance  of  opinion  is  decidedly  the 
other  way.  I  know  it  has  been  said  by  one  prominent 
individual,  that  he  has  heard  of  no  man,  whose  opinion 
was  worth  regarding,  who  denied  the  constitutionality 
of  the  law.  Now,  as  it  is  a  fact  universally  known, 
that  gentlemen  who  have  occupied  and  adorned  the 
highest  judicial  stations  in  their  respective  states,  to 
gether  with  many  of  the  ablest  lawyers  in  the  whole 
country,  have  expressed  opinions  against  the  constitu 
tionality  of  this  law,  I  have  but  one  single  word  of 
reply  to  a  declaration  so  arrogant  and  insolent  as  this. 
That  reply  is,  that  on  a  great  moral  and  political,  as 
well  as  legal  question, — a  question  that  connects  itself 
with  ethics,  as  well  as  with  partisan  politics,  and  the 
success  of  old  parties  or  the  formation  of  new  ones.  — 
integrity  is  as  necessary  to  the  formation  of  a  sound 
opinion  as  intelligence. 

I  think,  however,  that  one  further  remark  should  in 
candor  be  made,  in  regard  to  the  difference  of  opinions 
held  by  honest  men  on  this  subject.  The  constitu 
tionality  or  unconstitutionality  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law 
is  not  a  question  to  be  determined  solely  by  any  single 
and  simple  provision  of  the  fundamental  law.  Nu 
merous  clauses  in  the  constitution  have  a  bearing  upon 
it.  It  connects  itself  with  contemporaneous  history. 
It  presents  a  case  where  commentators  and  expounders 
must  appeal  to  precedents  and  analogies,  and  to  general 
principles  respecting  the  nature  of  government  and  the 
object  of  all  law.  It  is  therefore  a  question  of  con 
struction  and  interpretation.  And,  what  is  a  more  im 
portant  consideration  still,  it  belongs  emphatically  to 
that  class  of  cases  where  men,  who  have  been  trained 


401 

under  one  class  of  institutions,  and  whose  minds  have 
been  moulded  and  shaped  by  the  universal  prevalence 
of  one  set  of  opinions  and  one  course  of  practice,  ma  y 
honestly  come  to  one  conclusion,  while  those  who 
have  grown  up  under  adverse  opinions  and  an  adverse 
practice, — or  rather,  into  whose  minds  adverse  opin 
ions  and  adverse  practices  have  grown,  until  they  have 
become  a  part  of  the  very  substance  of  those  minds, — 
may  honestly  come  to  an  opposite  conclusion.  We 
know,  too,  that  in  addition  to  the  powerful  influences 
of  education  and  training,  the  general  cast  and  struc 
ture  of  men's  minds  predispose  them  to  take  one  side 
or  the  other  of  great  political  and  religious  questions. 
Natural  biases  operate  like  a  law  of  gravitation  to  sway 
different  minds  in  different  directions.  When,  there 
fore,  a  southern  gentleman,  into  whose  perceptions  and 
reasonings  and  moral  sentiments,  the  facts  and  the  creed 
of  slavery  have  been  incorporating  themselves  ever 
since  he  was  born,  tells  me  that  he  believes  even  such 
a  law  as  this  to  be  constitutional,  I  can  still  concede 
the  fulness  of  his  integrity,  however  strongly  I  may 
dissent  from  the  soundness  of  his  opinion.  It  is  a  law 
that  might  be  held  constitutional  by  a  bench  of  slave 
holders,  while  it  would  be  held  unconstitutional  by  all 
the  inhabitants  of  a  free  land.  It  is  a  law  that  might 
be  held  valid  by  the  courts  of  Austria,  while  it  would 
be  held  invalid  by  those  of  England.  It  is  a  law 
which  the  judges  of  Westminster  Hall  might  have 
held  valid  in  the  time  of  the  Stuarts,  which  they  might 
and  probably  would  have  held  invalid  in  the  eighteenth 
century ;  and,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  would  cer 
tainly  have  reprobated  and  annulled. 

My  own  opinion  is,  in  view  of  the  great  principles 
of  civil  liberty  out  of  which  the  constitution  grew, 
and  which  it  was  designed  to  secure,  that  this  law  can 
not  be  fairly  and  legitimately  supported  on  constitu 
tional  grounds.  I  express  this  opinion  because,  after 
34* 


402 

having  formed  it  with  careful  deliberation,  I  am  now 
bound  to  speak  from  it,  and  to  act  from  it.  I  have 
read  every  argument,  and  every  article  in  defence  of 
the  law,  that  I  could  find,  from  whatever  source  ema 
nating.  Nay,  I  have  been  more  anxious  to  read  the 
arguments  made  in  its  favor  than  the  arguments  against 
it ;  and  I  think  I  have  seen  a  sound  legal  answer  to  all 
the  former.  As  for  any  arrogant  or  supercilious  dic 
tum,  either  that  the  law  is  constitutional  or  that  it  is 
not  constitutional,  unaccompanied  by  any  reason  or 
any  reference,  all  reflecting  men  must  regard  it  as  sheer 
insolence,  come  from  what  quarter  it  may. 

Even  should  the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States 
declare  the  law  to  be  constitutional,  then,  though  we 
must  acknowledge  their  decision,  as  to  the  -point  de 
cided,  to  be  the  law  of  the  land,  until  it  is  set  aside, 
yet,  without  any  disrespect  to  that  tribunal,  we  may 
still  adhere  to  our  former  opinion.  We  know  how 
that  court  is  constituted.  A  majority  of  its  members 
are  from  slaveholding  states.  Independent,  too,  of  all 
other  considerations,  they  will  feel  a  strong  desire  to 
maintain  a  former  opinion,  which  was  also  given  when 
a  majority  of  its  judges  were  from  the  south.  We 
may,  therefore,  place  our  dissent  on  grounds  which, 
two  years  ago,  when  the  "  Clayton  compromise,"  so 
called,  was  under  discussion,  were  so  well  stated  by  a 
distinguished  senator  from  Ohio,  [Mr.  CORWIN,]  — 
grounds  perfectly  respectful  on  our  part,  and  not  de 
rogatory  to  the  court.  He  said,  — 

"It  is  a  sad  commentary  upon  the  perfection  of  human  rea 
son,  that,  with  but  few  exceptions,  gentlemen  coming  from  a 

slave  state all  eminent  lawyers  on  this  floor,  from  that 

section  of  the  country,  have  agreed  that  you  have  no  right  to 
prohibit  the  introduction  of  slavery  into  Oregon,  California, 
and  New  Mexico ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  not  a 
man,  with  few  exceptions,  (and  some  highly  respectable,)  in 
the  free  states,  learned  and  unlearned,  clerical  or  lay,  who  has 


403 

any  pretensions  to  legal  knowledge,  but  believes  in  his  con 
science  that  you  have  a  right  to  prohibit  slavery How 

is  this  ?  Can  I  have  confidence  in  the  supreme  court  of  the 
United  States,  when  my  confidence  fails  in  senators  around 
mo  here  ?  Do  I  expect  that  the  members  of  that  body  will  be 
more  careful  than  the  senators  from  Georgia  and  South  Caro 
lina  to  form  their  opinions  without  any  regard  to  seJJis/i  con 
siderations  1 " 

Besides,  the  supreme  court  have  already,  as  I  will 
show,  decided  certain  points  in  such  a  way  that,  if 
they  maintain  the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  they  will  be 
obliged  to  overrule  those  points  ;  and  it  is  more  credita 
ble  to  them  to  suppose  they  will  overrule  their  decision 
in  Prigg's  case,  than  to  suppose  they  will  overrule  other 
decisions  in  other  cases. 

In  the  first  place,  I  believe  the  constitution  not  only 
authorizes  but  requires  a  trial  by  jury,  in  the  case  of 
alleged  fugitive  slaves,  when  claimed  in  free  states. 

The  constitution  declares,  "  The  right  of  the  people 
to  be  secure  in  their  persons,"  "against  unreasonable" 
"  seizures,  shall  not  be  violated ;  and  no  warrant  shall 
issue  but  upon  probable  cause,  supported  by  oath  or 
affirmation,  and  particularly  describing"  "  the  persons 
or  things  to  be  seized."  —  Amend.,  Art.  IV. 

It  also  declares,  that,  "  In  suits  at  common  law, 
where  the  value  in  controversy  shall  exceed  twenty 
dollars,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  shall  be  preserved." 
—  Amend.,  Art.  VII. 

And  it  also  says,  "No  person  shall  be  deprived  of 
life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law." 
Amend.,  Art.  V.  And  it  is  most  important  to  observe 
that  these  words,  "due  process  of  law,"  are  held  by 
all  the  authorities  to  include  the  trial  by  jury.  —  3 
Story's  Com.  661 ;  2  Inst.  50,  51  ;  2  Kent's  Com.  10  ; 
1  Tucker's  Black.  App.  304-5. 

That  there  may  be  no  doubt  about  the  meaning  and 
force  of  these  words,  I  quote  the  following  passage 
from  Chancellor  Kent :  — 


404 

"  It  may  be  received  as  a  self-evident  proposition,  univer 
sally  understood  and  acknowledged  throughout  the  country, 
that  no  person  can  be  taken  or  imprisoned,  or  disseized  from 
his  freehold,  or  liberties,  or  estate,  or  exiled,  or  condemned, 
or  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property,  unless  by  the  law  of 
the  land,  or  the  judgment  of  his  peers.  The  words,  l  by  the 
law  of  the  land,'  as  used  by  the  Magna  Charta,  in  reference 
to  this  subject,  are  understood  to  mean  '  due  process  of  law.' 
That  is,  by  indictment  or  presentment  of  good  and  lawful 
—  2  Com.  13. 


Now,  in  most  of  the  cases  which  will  arise  under 
the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  there  will  be  a  "seizure  "  un 
der  a  warrant  ;  and  in  all  the  cases,  the  questions  both 
of  property  and  of  liberty  will  necessarily  be  involved. 
In  every  case,  the  claimant  will  aver  property  in  the 
respondent,  and  will  seek  to  deprive  him  of  his  liberty. 
The  respondent  will  deny  the  claim  of  property,  and 
will  seek  to  retain  his  liberty. 

Now,  suppose  a  man  to  have  lived  in  Boston  or 
New  York  for  twenty  years  ;  to  have  contracted  mar 
riage  ;  to  have  bought  and  sold  ;  to  have  hired  himself 
out  to  others,  and  to  have  hired  others  to  serve  him  ; 
to  have  pleaded  and  been  impleaded  in  the  courts  ;  to 
have  voted  at  elections,  and  to  be,  in  all  respects,  as 
free  by  the  constitutions  of  Massachusetts  and  New 
York  as  the  governors  of  those  states  themselves  ;  and 
suppose  further,  that  this  man  is  suddenly  seized  and 
taken  before  a  commissioner,  is  adjudged  the  property 
of  another  man  like  himself,  with  no  chance  of  revis 
ing  the  decision,  or  of  having  a  new  trial,  is  placed  in 
duress,  and  then  transported  by  force,  and  against  his 
will,  to  a  distant  state,  under  a  claim  that  he  is  a  slave, 
and  an  adjudication  that  such  claim  is  true,  —  suppose 
all  this,  I  say,  and  then  answer  me  this  simple  question, 
Has,  or  has  not,  such  a  man  been  "  deprived  of  his 
liberty  "  ?  In  other  words,  does  such  a  man  retain 
his  liberty  ?  As  he  is  borne  away  by  force,  and  against 


405 

prayers,  and  tears,  and  struggles,  does  lie  remain  free  ? 
Can  a  man  be  adjudged  a  slave  ;  held,  coerced,  beaten 
as  a  slave  ;  with  all  his  powers  and  faculties  of  body 
and  mind  subdued  and  controlled  as  a  slave's,  and  yet 
possess  or  retain  liberty?  If  such  a  proceeding  does 
not  deprive  a  man  of  his  freedom,  by  what  means  can 
he  be  deprived  of  it  ?  What  more,  or  what  other  tiling 
would  you  do  to  deprive  him  of  it?  Would  binding 
him.  out  to  serve  for  life  deprive  him  of  it  ?  This  de 
clares  that  he  owes  service  for  life.  Would  imprison 
ment  deprive  him  of  it  ?  This  imprisons  him,  and 
makes  the  man  his  keeper  who  is  interested  to  make 
that  imprisonment  perpetual  in  himself,  and  descend 
ible  to  his  children,  and  his  children's  children  forever. 

Is  not  perpetual  imprisonment  of  the  nature  and  sub 
stance  of  punishment,  —  of  the  severest  punishment? 
The  constitution  has  provided  that  "  cruel  and  unusual 
punishments  shall  not  be  inflicted,"  even  for  the  perpe 
tration  of  the  worst  of  crimes  ;  yet  here  is  a  case  where 
the  most  cruel  of  punishments,  or  of  privations,  may 
he  inflicted  without  even  a  charge  of  crime.  And  the 
argument  is,  that  this  form  of  punishment  may  consti 
tutionally  be  inflicted,  because  it  was  so  inconceivably 
atrocious  and  diabolical  that  the  constitution  did  not 
prohibit  it,  —  because  the  constitution  only  prohibited 
••cruel  and  unusual  punishments"  for  crimes,  and  not 
for  having  a  dark  skin. 

Does  any  one  say  that  a  victim  of  this  law  has  not 
been  "deprived"  of  his  liberty  because  he  may  sue  for 
it,  and  possibly  recover  it,  in  the  courts  of  the  state  to 
which  he  is  carried  ?  I  reply,  that  it  would  be  just  as 
good  an  answer  to  say,  that  he  may  possibly  recover 
his  liberty  by  escape,  or  possibly  his  master  may  eman 
cipate  him,  or  possibly  a  St.  Domingo  insurrection  may 
break  out,  or  possibly  the  walls  of  his  prison-house 
may  be  shaken  down  by  an  earthquake,  and  he  may 
go  forth  like  Paul  and  Silas  ;  and  therefore  he  is  not 


406 

deprived  of  his  liberty  by  being  enslaved.  Neither  of 
these  events  would  have  the  slightest  legal  relation  to 
the  proceedings  which  did  enslave  him.  Neither  of 
them  would  be  retroactive,  undoing  or  annulling  the 
past.  Enslavement  and  liberty  being  incompatible, 
when  he  suffers  the  first,  though  but  for  an  hour,  he  is 
deprived  of  the  last.  The  moment  he  should  arrive 
within  the  limits  of  a  slave  state,  that  moment  he  would 
be  in  the  same  condition  as  three  million  other  fellow- 
bondmen  ;  and  it  would  be  just  as  rational  to  say  that 
they  have  never  been  deprived  of  liberty  as  that  he  has 
not.  When  our  government  made  war  upon  Algiers, 
ransoming  American  captives  from  their  horrible  bond 
age  and  restoring  them  to  their  homes,  did  it  annihi 
late  the  preexisting  fact  that  they  had  been  enslaved  ? 
Did  it  enable  or  authorize  the  historian  to  say  that 
they  had  never  been  deprived  of  their  liberty  1  Had 
Algiers  been  "  reiinnexed  "  as  one  of  the  states  of  this 
Union,  could  she  have  said,  "  We  have  not  broken  the 
constitution  because  these  men  are  free  again"?  I  affirm, 
then,  that  when  a  man  in  Massachusetts,  who  by  the 
constitution  of  Massachusetts  is  free,  is  adjudged  to  be 
a  slave,  is  transported  as  a  slave,  and  held  as  a  slave,  in 
a  southern  state,  though  it  be  but  for  a  single  day,  he  is 
deprived  of  his  liberty.  That  very  thing  is  done  to  him 
which  the  constitution  says  shall  not  be  done  but  by  a 
jury  of  his  peers. 

But  a  question  of  PROPERTY  is  involved  as  well  as  a 
question  of  liberty.  "  In  suits  at  common  law,"  says 
the  constitution,  "  where  the  value  in  controversy  shall 
exceed  twenty  dollars,  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  shall 
be  preserved." 

Now,  sir,  in  regard  to  this  important  clause  in  the 
fundamental  law,  I  propose  to  demonstrate  the  three 
following  propositions  :  — 

First;  the  claim,  made  before  a  competent  magis 
trate,  for  a  "  person  held  to  service  or  labor,"  is,  in  view 
of  this  constitutional  provision,  a  "  suit." 


407 

Second;  it  is  a  "suit  at  common  law." 

Third  ;  it  is  a  suit  at  common  law  "  where  the  value 
in  controversy  exceeds  twenty  dollars." 

As  a  law  term,  the  lexicographers  define  the  word 
"suit"  to  mean  "an  action  or  process  for  the  recovery 
of  a  right  or  claim  ;  legal  application  to  a  court  for  jus 
tice  ;  prosecution  of  right  before  any  tribunal ;  — as  a 
civil  suit,  a  criminal  suit,  a  suit  in  chancery." 

Blackstone  says,  "  in  England,  the  several  suits,  or 
remedial  instruments  of  justice,  are  distinguished  into 
three  heads, — actions,  personal,  real,  and  mixed." 

"  Suit  "  comes  from  "  secta"  and  secta  from  sequor  ; 
and  the  phrase  "to  bring  suit,"  denoted  anciently,  to 
bring  secta,  —  followers,  or  witnesses,  to  prove  the 
plaintiff's  demand.  The  scope  of  the  word  is  now 
enlarged,  so  that  it  embraces  the  written  forms  by 
which  an  action  is  instituted,  as  well  as  the  proof 
which  sustains  it. 

We  are  not,  however,  confined  to  the  authority  of 
the  dictionary.  The  supreme  court,  in  the  case  of 
Cohens  vs.  Virginia,  6  Wheat.  407,  where  this  very 
word  "suit,"  as  it  occurs  in  the  constitution,  was  the 
subject  of  consideration,  defined  it  as  follows :  — 

"  What  is  a  suit  ?  We  understand  it  to  be  the  prosecution, 
or  pursuit,  of  some  claim,  demand,  or  request.  In  law  lan 
guage,  it  is  the  prosecution  of  some  demand,  in  a  court  of 
justice.  '  The  remedy  for  every  species  of  wrong  is,1  says 
Judge  Blackstone,  '  the  being  put  in  possession  of  that  right 
whereof  the  party  injured  is  deprived.'  The  instruments 
whereby  this  remedy  is  obtained,  are  a  diversity  of  suits  and 
actions,  which  are  defined  by  the  Mirror  to  be  ;  the  lawful 
demand  of  one's  right ; '  or,  as  Bracton  and  Fleta  express  it, 
in  the  words  of  Justinian,  '•jus  prosequendi  in  judicio  quod 
alicui  debeturS —  (the  form  of  prosecuting  in  trial,  or  judg 
ment,  what  is  due  to  any  one.)  Blackstone  then  proceeds  to 
describe  every  species  of  remedy  by  suit;  and  they  are  all 
cases  where  the  party  suing  claims  to  obtain  something  to 
which  it  has  a  right. 


408 

"  To  commence  a  suit,  is  to  demand  something  by  the  in 
stitution  of  process  in  a  court  of  justice  ;  and  to  prosecute  the 
suit,  is,  according  to  the  common  acceptation  of  language,  to 
continue  that  demand." 

Now  let  me  take  the  different  clauses  of  this  defini 
tion,  and  see  if  every  one  of  them  does  not  necessarily 
include  the  .demand  made  by  a  slave  claimant  against 
the  alleged  slave. 

"  We  understand  a  suit,"  say  the  court,  "  to  be  the 
prosecution  or  pursuit  of  some  claim,  demand,  or  re 
quest."  Here,  then,  according  to  the  supreme  court, 
a  suit  is  the  prosecution  of  some  claim  ;  and,  accord 
ing  to  the  very  letter  of  the  constitution,  the  fugitive 
slave  is  to  be  delivered  up,  on  claim.  The  slave,  then, 
can  be  constitutionally  and  legally  "  delivered  up  "  in 
no  other  way  than  "  on  claim,"  by  "suit." 

Again,  say  the  court:  "In  law  language,  it  [a  suit] 
is  the  prosecution  of  some  demand  in  a  court  of  jus 
tice."  When  legal  process  is  instituted  for  the  recov 
ery  of  a  slave,  is  it  not  the  prosecution  of  a  demand  ? 
And  will  any  one  be  rash  enough  to  say  that  a  man 
ostensibly  free,  —  free  according  to  all  legal  presump 
tion, —  can  be  "delivered"  over  to  bondage  for  life, 
without  the  intervention  of  "a  court  of  justice  "? 

To  proceed  with  the  opinion  of  the  court :  "  The 
Mirror  defines  a  suit  to  be  '  the  lawful  demand  of  one's 
right ; '  or,  as  Bracton  and  Fleta  express  it,  in  the  words 
of  Justinian,  it  is  the  form  of  prosecuting  in  trial,  or 
judgment,  what  is  due  to  any  one."  Here  service  is 
alleged  to  be  due  ;  and  the  one  who  is  said  to  owe  that 
service  is  "  prosecuted  by  trial  and  judgment,"  that  he 
may  render  the  service  claimed. 

"  To  commence  a  suit  is  to  demand  something  by 
the  institution  of  process  in  a  court  of  justice  ;  and  to 
prosecute  the  suit  is,  according  to  the  common  accepta 
tion  of  language,  to  continue  that  demand."  In  the 
appeal  to  a  court  for  the  possession  of  an  alleged  fugi- 


409 

tive,  is  not  something  "  demanded  "  ?  And  what  is  the 
warrant  that  is  issued  for  his  arrest  but  the  "  institu 
tion  of  process  "  ? 

If  any  one,  then,  will  show  that  a  "  claim  "  for  an 
alleged  fugitive,  by  process  of  law,  to  be  followed  up 
by  proof  in  support  of  the  claim,  and  to  be  consum 
mated  by  judgment,  is  not  a  "suit,"  he  must  show 
that  it  is  not  "  the  prosecution  or  support  of  a  claim  ;  " 
he  must  show  that  it  is  not  "the  prosecution  of  some 
demand  in  a  court  of  justice;"  he  must  show  that  it  is 
not  "  the  lawful  demand  of  one's  right ;  "  nor  "  the 
form  of  prosecuting  in  trial  or  judgment;"  and  finally, 
he  must  show  that  it  is  not  "  to  demand  something  by 
the  institution  of  process  in  a  court  of  justice,"  and  then 
"to  continue  that  demand"  until  judgment  is  rendered 
for  or  against  him. 

But  should  the  claimant  of  a  fugitive  slave  show  any 
one  of  these  four  things,  he  would  show  himself  the 
way  out  of  court. 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  second  proposition, 
namely, — 

The  claim  for  a  person  "held  to  service  or  labor" 
is.  in  view  of  the  constitution,  a  "  suit  at  common 
law." 

In  a  decision  bearing  directly  on  the  right  to  a  trial 
by  jury,  the  supreme  court  has  defined  the  phrase 
"suits  at  common  law,"  in  special  reference  to  its 
meaning  in  the  seventh  amendment  to  the  constitu 
tion,  where  the  right  to  such  trial,  "  in  suits  at  common 
law,"  is  secured.  These  are  their  words:  — 

"  It  is  well  known  that  in  civil  causes,  in  courts  of  equity 
and  admiralty,  juries  do  not  intervene  ;  and  that  courts  of 
equity  use  the  trial  by  jury  only  in  extraordinary  cases,  to  in 
form  the  conscience  of  the  court.  When,  therefore,  we  find 
that  the  [seventh],  amendment  requires  that  the  right  of  trial 
by  jury  shall  be  preserved  in  suits  at  common  law,  the  natural 
conclusion  is,  that  this  distinction  was  present  to  the  minds 
35 


410 

of  the  framers  of  the  amendment.  By  common  law  they 
meant,  what  the  constitution  denominated  in  the  third  article, 
4  law ; '  not  merely  suits,  which  the  common  law  recognized 
among  its  old  and  settled  proceedings  ;  but  suits,  in  which 
legal  rights  were  to  be  ascertained  and  determined,  in  contra 
distinction  to  those  in  which  equitable  rights  alone  were  recog 
nized,  and  equitable  remedies  were  administered,  or  in  which, 
as  in  the  admiralty,  a  mixture  of  public  law,  and  of  maritime 
law  and  equity,  was  often  found  in  the  same  suit.  Probably 
there  were  few,  if  any  states  in  the  Union,  in  which  some  new 
legal  remedies,  differing  from  the  old  common  law  forms, 
were  not  in  use  ;  but  in  which,  however,  the  trial  by  jury  in 
tervened,  and  the  general  regulations,  in  other  respects,  were 
according  to  the  course  of  the  common  law.  Proceedings  in 
cases  of  partition,  and  of  foreign  and  domestic  attachment, 
might  be  cited,  as  examples,  variously  adopted  and  modified. 
In  a  just  sense,  the  amendment,  then,  may  well  be  construed  to 
embrace  all  suits,  which  are  not  of  equity  or  admiralty  juris 
diction,  WHATEVER  MAY  BE  THE  PECULIAR  FORM  WHICH  THEY 
MAY  ASSUME  TO  SETTLE  LEGAL  RIGHTS." ParSOHS  VS.  Bed 
ford,  3  Peters's  Rep.  456-57. 

Here  the  court  say,  that  the  term,  "common  law," 
in  the  seventh  amendment,  meant  what  the  constitu 
tion  denominated  in  the  third  article,  "  law."  The 
word  "law  "  which  is  here  referred  to,  as  contained  in 
the  third  article,  occurs  in  the  following  sentence : 
"  The  judicial  power  shall  extend  to  all  cases,  in  law 
and  equity,  arising  under  this  constitution,  the  laws  of 
the  United  States,"  &c.  And  the  court  declare  that 
the  constitutional  right  to  a  jury  trial  embraces  "  not 
merely  suits,  which  the  common  law  recognized  among 
its  old  and  settled  proceedings,  but  suits  in  which  legal 
rights  were  to  be  ascertained  and  determined,"  in  con 
tradistinction  from  equity  and  admiralty  cases. 

And  in  the  last  sentence  of  the  decision  quoted,  the 
court  expressly  say,  that  the  seventh  amendment  em 
braces  "  all  suits  which  are  not  of  equity  or  admiralty 
jurisdiction^  WHATEVER  MAY  BE  THE  PECULIAR  FORM 


411 


WHICH    THEY     MAY     ASSUME     TO    SETTLE    LEGAL    RIGHTS." 

The  court  say  "  ALL."  After  excepting  cases  of 
equity  and  admiralty  jurisdiction,  they  declare  that 
the  phrase.  "  suits  at  common  law,"  embraces  all  the 
rest.  They  recognize  no  hybrid  class,  not  included 
under  one  or  another  of  these  heads. 

Now  it  has  been  proved  above,  that  a  warrant  for 
the  arrest  of  an  alleged  fugitive,  together  with  the 
allegations  and  proofs  under  it,  constitute  a  "  suit." 
And  can  any  thing  be  more  clear,  than  that  a  proceed 
ing  which  decides  the  issue,  whether  a  man  "  owes  " 
or  does  not  "owe;"  which  decides  the  issue,  whether 
a  man  has  "  escaped,"  or  has  not  "  escaped  ;  "  and 
which,  as  the  legal  consequence  of  these  decisions,  de 
livers  one  man  into  the  custody  of  another  as  his  slave, 
or  enlarges  one  man  from  the  custody  of  another  be 
cause  he  is  not  his  slave,  is,  "  whatever  peculiar  form 
it  may  assume,"  a  proceeding  "  to  settle  a  legal  right," 
—  one  of  the  highest  and  most  important  legal  rights 
that  appertain  to  a  man  ?  It  is  not,  in  legal  language, 
aright  "of  equity  or  admiralty  jurisdiction,"  but  ex 
clusively  and  purely  a  legal  right,  and  nothing  else. 

The  court  declare  this  to  be  so,  whatever  peculiar 
form,  the  process  may  assume.  But  what  gives  pecu 
liar  pertinency  and  stringency  to  this  decision  of  the 
court  is.  that  at  common  law  there  was  an  original 
writ,  called  the  writ  de  homine  rcplcgiando,  —  the  writ 
of  personal  replevin,  or  for  replevying  a  man,  by  which 
the  question  of  property  in  a  man  might  be  determined. 
It  was  a  writ  which  the  party  could  sue  out  of  right  ; 
one  to  be  granted  on  motion,  without  showing  cause, 
and  which  the  court  of  chancery  could  not  supersede. 
In  the  very  language  of  the  supreme  court,  it  was  a 
writ  recognized  by  the  common  law,  and  is  to  be  found 
"among  its  old  and  settled  proceedings."  The  form 
of  it  is  contained  in  that  great  arsenal  of  common  law 
writs,  the  Rcgistrum  Brevium. 


412 

"A  man,"  says  Comyn,  "  may  have  a  homine  reple- 
giando  for  a  negro,  or  for  an  Indian  brought  by  him 
into  England  and  detained  from  him  ;  or  it  may  be 
brought  by  an  infant  against  his  testamentary  guardian ; 
or  by  a  villein  against  his  lord"  —  (Dig.,  title  Impris 
onment,  L.  4.) 

If  this  writ  could  be  brought  "  for  a  negro,"  or  "  for 
an  Indian,"  by  a  man  who  had  introduced  him  into 
England,  and  from  whom  he  had  been  detained  ;  and 
if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  could  be  brought  by  the 
negro,  or  by  the  Indian  to  gain  his  freedom,  as  was 
clearly  the  case,  then  it  follows  that  the  question  of  a 
right  to  a  man,  as  well  as  that  of  human  freedom,  was 
a  question  familiar  to  the  ancient  common  law,  and 
for  the  trial  of  which  a  well-known  process  existed 
"  among  its  old  and  settled  proceedings."  But  this 
ancient  writ,  de  homine  replegiando,  carries  with  it,  as 
every  body  knows,  the  trial  by  jury,  as  much  as  an 
action  of  assault  and  battery,  or  of  assumpsit  on  a 
promissory  note. 

I  have  always  understood,  that  before  the  revolution, 
and  before  the  framing  of  our  constitution,  Cornyn's 
Digest,  from  which  the  above  citation  is  made,  was  a 
work  of  the  highest  authority.  It  must  have  been  well 
known  to  all  the  lawyers  in  the  convention.  Could 
they  have  intended  that  the  mere  fact  of  claiming  a 
man  as  a  slave,  —  which  claim  might  be  made  against 
a  freeman  as  well  as  against  a  slave,  —  should  be  suf 
ficient  to  deprive  him  of  this  ancient  muniment  of  the 
subject's  liberty  ?  It  seems  impossible  ! 

But  we  are  not  left  to  the  broad  and  general  asser 
tion,  contained  in  the  case  of  Parsons  vs.  Bedford, 
that  the  seventh  article  of  amendment  embraces  "all 
suits  "  not  of  equity  or  admiralty  jurisdiction,  what 
ever  the  peculiar  form  which  they  may  assume  to  settle 
legal  rights.  Authority  exists  still  more  pointed  and 
direct.  In  Baker  vs.  Riddle,  Mr.  Justice  Baldwin, 


413 

one  of  the  judges  of  the  supreme  court  of  the  United 
States,  held  that  it  was  not  in  the  power  of  Congress 
to  take  away  the  right  of  trial  by  jury,  as  secured  by 
tlio  seventh  amendment ;  neither,  — 

"  1.  By  an  organization  of  the  courts  in  such  a  man 
ner  as  not  to  secure  it  to  suitors  ;  nor, 

"2.  By  authorizing  the  courts  to  exercise,  or  their 
assumption  of,  equity  or  admiralty  jurisdiction  over 
cases  at  law." 

"  This  amendment,"  says  he,  "  preserves  the  right 
of  jury  trial  against  any  infringement  by  any  depart 
ment  of  the  government."  —  Baldwin's  Rep.  404. 

Now,  what  are  the  tribunals  created  by  the  Fugitive 
Slave  law  but  a  new  "  organization  of  the  courts  "  ? 
or  rather,  the  creation  of  new  courts,  "  in  such  a  man 
ner  as  not  to  secure,  [the  right  of  trial  by  jury,]  to 
suitors  ?  "  By  it,  Congress  creates  tribunals  unknown 
to  the  common  law,  and  purports  to  give  them  power 
over  common  law  rights. 

Having  now  proved,  from  the  nature  of  the  claim 
in  controversy.  —  namely,  the  claim  of  one  man  to  the 
personal  services  and  the  liberty  of  another  man,  and  the 
counter  claim  of  personal  liberty  and  of  self-ownership, 
—  that  the  right  in  dispute  between  the  claimant  of 
an  alleged  fugitive,  and  the  person  claimed,  is  a  com 
mon  law  right ;  and  that  any  legal  process  to  deter 
mine  this  right,  "  whatever  form  it  may  assume,"  is  a 
"suit  at  common  law,"  it  only  remains,  under  this 
head,  to  establish  my  third  point,  namely  ; 

A  claim  to  any  person,  as  one  "  held  to  service  or 
labor,"  always  and  necessarily  presumes  that  "  the 
value  in  controversy  exceeds  twenty  dollars." 

On  this  point,  direct  authority  may  be  found  in  the 
case  of  Lee  vs.  Lee,  8  Peters's  Rep.  44.  This  was 
an  appealed  case,  where  by  law  no  appeal  could  be  tak 
en  unless  "  the  value  in  controversy  "  should  be  "  one 
thousand  dollars  or  upwards."  It  was  objected  that 
35* 


414 

the  apellants, — the  petitioners   for   freedom,  —  were 
not  worth  a  thousand  dollars.     But  the  court  said,  — 

"  The  matter  in  dispute,  in  this  case,  is  the  freedom  of  the 
petitioners.  The  judgment  of  the  court  below  is  against  their 
claim  to  freedom  ;  the  matter  in  dispute  is,  therefore,  to  the 
plaintiffs  in  error,  the  value  of  their  freedom,  and  this  is  not 
susceptible  of  a  pecuniary  valuation.  Had  the  judgment 
been  in  favor  of  the  petitioners,  and  the  writ  of  error  brought 
by  the  party  claiming  to  be  the  owner,  the  value  of  the  slaves 
as  property  would  have  been  the  matter  in  dispute,  and  affi 
davits  might  be  admitted  to  ascertain  such  value.  But  affida 
vits  estimating  the  value  of  freedom  are  entirely  inadmissible, 
and  no  doubt  is  entertained  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  court." 

Suppose  there  are  two  claimants  for  the  same  alleged 
fugitive  ?  If  his  market  value  exceeds  twenty  dollars, 
both  of  them  have  a  clear  right  to  the  trial  by  jury. 
And  can  it  be  that  a  man's  right  to  his  own  freedom  can 
not  be  tried  by  a  jury,  when,  if  two  men  dispute  about 
his  value,  each  may  claim  the  jury  trial,  and  cannot  be 
denied  ? 

On  the  three  points,  then,  1.  What  constitutes  a 
common  law  or  "  legal  right ;  "  2.  What  constitutes 
"a  suit  at  common  law,"  and  3.  What  constitutes 
"a  value  which  exceeds  twenty  dollars," — namely; 
the  personal  liberty  of  any  human  being,  though  he  be 
an  infant  just  born,  or  a  drivelling  idiot,  or  he  be 
stretched  upon  his  death  bed  with  only  another  hour 
to  breathe,  —  I  trust  I  have  made  out  a  case  which 
entitles  a  party  to  trial  by  jury  under  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States. 

I  might  here  rest  the  argument,  feeling  that,  from 
authority  and  from  reason,  from  the  old  and  time-hon 
ored  principles  of  the  common  law,  as  well  as  from 
those  interpretations  of  the  constitution  which  have 
been  given  by  the  supreme  court,  my  conclusions  are 
impregnable.  But  I  proceed  to  notice  some  of  the 
points  taken  on  the  other  side  j  and  if  I  shall  occa- 


415 

sionally  advert  to  positions  that  are  obviously  too 
shallow  and  fallacious  for  discussion,  it  is  only  because 
I  wish  to  omit  nothing  which  any  one  may  think  of 
importance. 

It  is  alleged  that  the  whole  force  of  the  above 
argument,  otherwise  conclusive,  is  annulled,  because  a 
slave  is  no  party  to  the  constitution,  is  not  under  its 
protecting  shield  any  more  than  a  horse  or  an  ox,  and 
therefore,  any  provisions,  however  strong,  securing  the 
jury  trial,  are  inapplicable  to  him.  A  slave,  it  is  said, 
is  not  one  of  the  "  people  "  by  whom  and  for  whom  the 
constitution  was  formed.  He  is  an  outlaw,  and  an 
outcast.  He  has  no  inherent  or  inalienable  rights 
as  a  man.  What  he  has,  he  has  ex  gratia,  by  the 
good  will  of  those  who  own  him,  body  and  soul,  and 
who  are  graciously  pleased  to  forego  some  of  their 
legal  rights  from  generosity  in  themselves,  and  not  from 
justice  to  him. 

Now,  as  it  seems  to  me,  a  most  obvious  principle 
confutes  this  argument  utterly.  By  the  laws  of  the 
free  states,  we  know  no  such  being  as  a  slave.  Our 
courts,  in  their  functions  as  state  courts,  do  not  under 
stand  the  meaning  of  the  word  slave.  To  talk  to 
them  in  that  capacity  about  a  slave  or  slavery,  is 
talking  to  them  in  an  unknown  tongue.  In  the  eye  of 
the  legislators  of  the  free  states,  and  in  the  eye  of  the 
courts  of  the  free  states,  so  far  as  their  domestic  polity 
is  concerned,  there  can  be  no  such  creature  as  a  slave. 
The  constitution  of  every  free  state  in  this  Union 
must  be  first  altered,  before  any  such  being  as  a  slave, 
or  any  such  condition  as  slavery,  can  be  recognized 
under  them,  as  state  authorities. 

So  the  constitution  of  the  United  States  creates  no 
slaves,  and  can  create  none.  Nor  has  it  power  to 
establish  the  condition  of  slavery  any  where.  And  I 
hold  further,  that  if  the  government  of  the  United 


416 

States,  by  escheat,  by  purchase,  by  execution  against 
a  debtor,  or  in  any  other  way,  should  become  possessed 
of  a  slave,  that  moment  he  would  be  free.  The  gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States  can  neither  hold  a  slave, 
nor  make  valid  title  to  a  slave  by  sale.  It  is  a  govern 
ment  whose  powers  consist  of  the  grants  that  have 
been  made  to  it  ;  and  nowhere,  by  no  competent  party, 
has  any  such  grant  ever  been  made. 

The  relation  of  the  government  of  the  United 
States  to  slavery  consists  in  this,  and  in  this  alone  : 
that  when  this  government  was  created,  slavery  existed 
in  a  portion  of  the  states;  and  by  certain  provisions  in 
the  constitution,  the  existence  of  this  slavery  was 
recognized,  and  certain  rights  and  duties  in  relation  to 
it  were  respectively  acknowledged  and  assumed.  But 
the  government  of  the  United  States  has  no  more 
power  to  turn  a  freemen  in  a  free  state  into  a  slave 
than  it  has  to  turn  a  slave  in  a  slave  state  into  a 
freeman. 

The  officers  of  the  state  government  being  sworn  to 
support  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  the 
governments  of  the  free  states  are  implicated  indirectly 
in  the  matter  of  slavery,  as  the  government  of  the 
United  States  is  directly,  and  not  otherwise. 

Both  by  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  then, 
and  by  the  constitutions  of  all  the  free  states,  every 
man  found  within  the  limits  of  a  free  state  is  prima 
facie  FREE.  No  matter  what  complexion  he  may  wear, 
or  what  language  he  may  speak,  he  is  a  free  man  UNTIL 
some  other  civil  condition  is  proved  upon  him,  or  until 
he  forfeits  his  freedom  by  crime.  Every  man,  there 
fore,  in  any  one  of  the  free  states  of  this  Union,  has  a 
right  to  stand  upon  this  legal  presumption,  and  to  claim 
all  the  privileges  and  immunities  that  grow  out  of  it  un 
til  his  presumed  freedom  is  wrested  from  him  by  legal 
proof.  It  is  the  most  cruel  of  sophisms  to  say,  that 
because  a  man  is  claimed  as  a  slave,  he  is  not  under 


417 

the  protection  of  the  constitution,  and  then  to  prescribe 
a  base  mode  of  trial  for  him,  bij  which  he  can  be  proved 
the  thing  he  is  claimed  for.  On  the  subject  of  freedom 
or  slavery,  we  of  the  free  states  know  of  but  one  class 
of  men  living  among  us.  That  class  is  free.  There 
is  no  such  class  as  slaves  known  to  our  laws.  Nor  is 
there  any  intermediate  class,  who  may  be  presumed  to 
be  slaves  on  account  of  their  color,  or  who  may  be 
proved  to  be  slaves  by  less  evidence,  or  by  an  inferior 
kind  of  evidence,  because  of  color. 

No  axiom  is  more  universal  or  indisputable,  than 
that  the  right  to  freedom  in  a  free  state,  and  the  right 
to  be  held  and  treated  by  the  courts  as  a  freeman,  has 
no  relation  to  complexion.  If,  then,  these  rights  have 
no  relation  to  complexion,  all  white  men  may  be  ar 
bitrarily  presumed  to  be  slaves,  and  be  deprived  of  the 
form  of  trial,  secured  to  them  by  the  constitution,  just 
as  well  as  any  colored  man  can  be.  The  former  may 
just  as  well  be  proved  to  be  slaves,  on  dangerous,  or  on 
inferior,  or  on  insufficient  evidence,  as  the  latter.  No; 
the  liberty  to  which  every  man,  of  whatever  color,  in 
a  free  state,  is  prima  facie  entitled,  invests  him  with 
its  protection,  and  this  investiture  cannot  be  stripped 
from  him  but  by  the  judgment  of  his  peers  or  the  law 
of  the  land,  —  which,  as  we  have  before  seen,  means 
trial  by  jury. 

Any  other  interpretation  assumes  this  as  a  postulate, 
namely,  that  there  is  a  higher  or  surer  kind  of  trial 
applicable  to  freemen,  and  a  lower  or  inferior  mode  of 
proceeding  applicable  to  slaves.  And  the  inhuman  in 
ference  from  this  assumption  is,  that  any  man  against 
whom  a  ten-dollar  commissioner  may  issue  a  warrant 
as  a  possible  slave,  shall  forthwith  be  subjected  to  the 
slave's  mode  of  trial,  and  be  utterly  deprived  of  the 
freeman's  mode  of  trial  ;  or,  at  the  best,  that  he  shall 
be  sent  away  a  thousand  miles,  into  another  jurisdic 
tion,  there  only  to  have  the  slave's  mode  of  trial.  Ac- 


418 

cording  to  this  form  of  proceeding,  the  first  thing 
which  the  commissioner  says  to  his  victim  is,  "Being 
a  slave,  you  must  be  tried  in  a  summary  manner." 
"  But  I  am  not  a  slave,"  asseverates  the  respondent, 
"  and  I  claim  to  be  tried  by  my  peers  under  the  guar 
anties  of  the  constitution."  "  You  are  no  party  to  the 
constitution,"  rejoins  the  commissioner,  "  and,  there 
fore,  not  entitled  to  its  shelter.  The  constitution  was 
made  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  and  you  are 
not  of  them."  Then  says  the  victim,  "If  I  could 
have  the  trial  due  to  a  freeman,  I  could  prove  myself 
a  freeman ;  but  under  the  form  of  trial  awarded  to  a 
slave,  I  may  be  adjudged  a  slave  ;  so  that  my  fate  is 
made  to  depend  not  upon  my  rights,  but  upon  your 
form  of  proceeding."  "  Even  if  so,"  retorts  the  mer 
cenary  minister  of  the  law,  "  it  is  but  an  imperfection 
incident  to  human  institutions.  Is  not  one  man's 
property  sometimes  taken  to  pay  another  man's  debts  ? 
and  is  not  one  man  sometimes  executed  for  another 
man's  murder  ?  Why,  then,  should  the  courts  of 
justice  be  arraigned,  if  a  freeman,  instead  of  a  slave,  is 
sometimes  consigned  to  bondage  ?  " 

Sir,  the  unmistakable  distinction  lies  here  ;  that  if 
there  be  any  difference  between  the  kind  or  degree  of 
proof  applicable  to  a  freeman  and  that  applicable  to  a 
slave,  then,  in  a  free  state,  you  must  first  prove  a  man  to 
be  a  slave  by  freeman's  proof.  If  cast  on  such  proof, 
then,  and  not  till  then,  does  he  become  the  subject  of 
slave  proof.  Any  thing  else  under  the  form  of  justice 
is  a  mockery  of  justice.  No  man  will  say  that  the 
"  claim  "  imposes  any  disability  upon  the  person 
claimed,  or  takes  away  from  him  any  rights.  A  man 
who  has  a  presumptive  right  to  his  liberty,  has  a  per 
fect  right  to  all  the  means  to  prove  it.  The  "  claim  " 
imposes  no  obligation  to  deliver  up,  but  the  proof 
under  the  claim  ;  and  this  proof  in  a  case  of  "  life, 
liberty,  or  property,"  is  to  be  judged  of  by  a  jury. 


410 

The  real  question  is,  who  is  to  be  delivered  up,  a  slave 
or  a  freeman  ?  If  the  person  arrested  is  prejudged  to 
be  a  slave,  then  there  is  no  need  of  a  trial  at  all.  If 
he  is  pritna  facie  a  freeman,  then  he  is  entitled  to  the 
most  perfect  mode  of  trial. 

By  the  theory,  I  believe,  of  all  the  slave  states  but 
one,  every  person  of  maternal  African  descent  is  pre 
sumed  to  be  a  slave.  As  such,  his  civil  condition  is 
fixed,  special  tribunals  are  constituted  to  try  him,  and 
he  is  subjected  to  rules  of  evidence  unknown  to  the 
common  law  and  never  applied  to  freemen.  Now  it 
would  be  but  the  same  kind  of  legal  absurdity  and 
preposterousness,  for  the  presumptive  slave  in  a  slave 
state,  to  demand  the  form  of  trial,  the  tribunal,  and  the 
evidence,  which  there  appertain  to  a  freeman,  as  it  is 
to  subject  the  presumptive  freeman  in  a  free  state,  to 
the  form  of  trial,  the  tribunal,  and  the  evidence,  which 
appertain  to  a  slave. 

The  iniquity  of  the  law  is,  that  it  enables  a  per 
jured  or  fictitious  slave  owner,  on  proofs  most  easily 
fabricated,  to  seize  any  individual  in  a  free  state,  and 
to  prejudge  him  to  be  a  slave,  by  the  very  form  of 
trial  which  this  law  authorizes.  On  the  contrary, 
nothing  can  be  more  clear,  than  that  the  civil  condition 
or  status  of  every  man  found  in  a  free  state  is  that 
of  a  free  man.  His  living  under  a  free  constitution, 
without  any  thing  more,  invests  him  prima  facie  with 
this  character.  Until  divested  of  this  character,  he 
continues  presumptively  a  free  man.  While  such,  he 
is  entitled  to  every  security  which  the  constitution 
gives  to  a  free  man.  How  then  can  he  be  subjected 
to  a  trial  which  reverses  the  whole  law  of  presumption 
in  favor  of  freedom,  and  which  presumes  that  he  is 
a  slave  to  begin  with  ?  This  is  not  only  anticipating 
the  judgment  at  the  commencement  of  the  proceed 
ings,  but  it  is  anticipating  the  worst  judgment  that 
can  be  passed  ;  and,  by  anticipating,  procuring  it  ;  as 
prophecies  often  procure  their  own  fulfilment. 


420 

I  put  this  case,  and  I  challenge  an  answer  that  shall 
refute  or  admit  my  conclusion  :  If  any  one  man  in  a 
free  state  can  be  seized  and  suddenly  transported  into 
bondage  under  this  law.  then  every  other  man  also 
can  be  ;  and  there  is  not  a  single  person  left  in  any 
free  state  who  has  a  right  to  a  trial  by  jury  to  save 
him  from  slavery.  I  am  not  now  speaking  of  the 
special  danger  to  each  particular  individual,  but  of  the 
principle  that  embraces  us  all.  Under  the  most  op 
pressive  of  tyrannies  there  are  persons  who  are  not  in 
danger.  But  under  such  a  law  as  this,  who  can  tell 
what  may  happen  to  men  arrested  away  from  home, 
to  unprotected  women,  and  to  helpless  children  ?  Do 
you  say  that  a  public  sentiment  and  a  public  watchful 
ness  exist,  which  would  protect  the  whites,  the  female, 
and  the  child  ?  I  reply,  that  we  possess  our  right  to 
protection  under  the  constitution  and  laws,  and  are 
not  to  be  turned  over  to  public  sentiment  or  public 
watchfulness  in  order  to  enjoy  it. 

Suppose  an  analogous  law  to  be  passed  respecting 
debtor  and  creditor.  Suppose  a  law  to  provide  some 
new  mode  of  proceeding  by  which  the  indebtedness 
of  a  defendant  should  be  so  far  presumed  as  to  subject 
him  to  an  inferior  kind  of  defence,  or  to  transfer  his 
case  to  another  kind  of  tribunal,  as  from  jurors  to 
arbitrators,  to  be  selected  by  the  plaintiff  himself. 
Who  is  there,  though  through  all  his  life  he  had  ful 
filled  the  apostolic  injunction  to  "owe  no  man  any 
thing,"  that  might  not  be  cast  in  an  action  that  would 
strip  him  of  all  his  fortune  ? 

The  law  punishes  murder  by  death.  Could  it  know 
with  omniscient  certainty,  beforehand,  who  is  a  mur 
derer,  it  might  take  from  him  the  trial  by  jury  without 
offence  to  the  eternal  principles  of  justice.  It  is  be 
cause  the  law  cannot  know  with  infallible  certainty, 
beforehand,  who  is  a  murderer,  that  it  provides  the 
trial  by  jury  to  determine  the  question.  Just  so, 


421 

because  human  tribunals  cannot  know  with  certainty 
who  is  a  slave  and  who  is  free,  the  constitution  gives 
the  trial  by  jury,  before  any  man  in  a  free  state  shall 
be  deprived  of  his  freedom.  And  the  argument,  that 
if  a  man  be  wrongfully  consigned  to  bondage  he  may 
be  afterwards  restored  to  freedom,  is  as  audacious  and 
as  tyrannical  as  to  say  that  an  innocent  man  may  be 
hanged  and  sent  into  another  world  as  a  felon,  because 
sometimes  the  dead  have  been  restored  to  life. 

It  is  no  answer  to  this  view  of  the  case,  to  say  that 
all  processes,  whether  civil  or  criminal,  are  initiated 
on  the  supposition  that  a  pecuniary  liability  exists,  or 
that  a  wrong  has  been  done.  Every  body  knows  that 
no  presumption  of  this  kind  follows  the  plaintiff,  or 
the  government,  into  court.  When  there,  in  the  pres 
ence  of  the  law,  the  plaintiff  must  establish  his  claim 
affirmatively.  The  possible  debtor  is  no  longer  a 
debtor.  So  the  government  must  prove  the  guilt  of 
the  man  it  has  arraigned.  The  possible  criminal  is 
no  longer  a  criminal.  In  the  eye  of  the  law,  he  is  as 
innocent  as  the  unborn  child.  When  they  claim  the 
trial  by  jury,  neither  plaintiff  nor  prosecutor  can  say, 
You  are  not  entitled  to  this  form  of  trial,  because 
you  arc  presumptively  a  debtor,  or  presumptively 
an  offender.  Yet  this  is  precisely,  and  in  totidetn 
verbis,  what  the  pro-slavery  argument  says  to  the 
respondent  when  he  is  brought  before  the  commis 
sioner  and  put  in  peril  of  his  freedom.  In  both  the 
cases  supposed,  such  a  doctrine  would  take  away  a 
man's  rights  in  the  most  odious  manner,  by  taking 
away  the  legitimate  and  constitutional  means  of  de 
fending  them. 

For  the  purpose  of  determining  by  suit  or  by  pros 
ecution  whether  a  man  is  a  debtor  or  is  an  offender,  a 
suit  or  a  prosecution  may  be  commenced  against  him, 
but  never  for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  presumption  that 
he  is  either  the  one  or  the  other,  or  to  deprive  him  of 
36 


422 

any  evidence  to  which  an  unindebted  or  an  innocent 
man  is  entitled,  or  to  change  the  tribunal  which  is  to 
try  the  question  of  indebtedness  or  of  guilt.  If  at 
tachment  on  mesne  process,  if  even  indictment  by  the 
grand  inquest  for  the  county,  does  not  deprive  a  man 
of  his  right  to  a  trial  by  jury,  how  can  so  great  a  nat 
ural  wrong  be  constitutionally  inflicted  by  the  warrant 
of  a  commissioner  ? 

The  presumption  that  a  colored  man  is  a  free  man 
in  the  free  states,  is  just  as  strong  as  that  a  man  of 
pure,  unmixed,  Anglo-Saxon  blood  is  a  free  man  in  the 
slave  states  ;  and  would  they  tolerate  the  doctrine  for 
a  moment  that  any  perfectly  pure-blooded  white  person 
could  be  transformed  into  a  slave,  and  as  such  sent 
from  his  own  state  into  another,  under  this  law?  Nay 
more  ;  would  any  slave  claimant  at  the  south  be 
allowed  to  go  .into  a  slave  state,  and  seize  upon  a 
pretended  fugitive  whom  another  man  might  claim  to 
own,  under  such  a  process  as  is  now  sufficient,  in  a 
free  stale,  to  authorize  the  taking  and  carrying  away 
of  the  same  individual  ? 

But  to  the  argument,  that  the  constitution  and  the 
law  of  1850  apply  only  to  slaves,  and  that  because 
slaves  are  not  parlies  to  the  constitution  they  are  not 
under  its  protection,  and  so  not  included  in  the  pro 
vision  for  jury  trial,  there  is  another  answer  perfectly 
fatal.  It  is  this  :  the  constitution  does  not  enumerate 
the  various  classes  of  criminals  who  shall  be  entitled 
to  trial  by  jury  ;  but  with  the  exception  of  cases  of 
impeachment,  and  cases  in  the  military  and  naval  ser 
vice,  it  expressly  declares  as  follows  :  "  The  trial  of 
all  crimes  shall  be  by  jury."  And  also,  "In  all  crim 
inal  prosecutions,  the  accused  shall  enjoy  the  right  to 
a  speedy  and  public  trial  by  an  impartial  jury,"  &c. 
The  right,  therefore,  is  not  made  to  depend  upon  the 
classes  of  persons  on  trial,  but  upon  the  nature  of  the 
charge  brought  against  them.  The  constitution  does 


not  say  that  freemen  shall  be  tried  in  one  way  and 
slaves  in  another  ;  but  its  language  is,  "  all  crimes," 
and  "  all  criminal  prosecutions  ;  "  so  that  it  embraces 
every  person  who  is  prosecuted,  whether  free  or  slave, 
citizen  or  foreigner,  Jew  or  Gentile.  If  an  Englishman 
or  a  Frenchman  were  to  be  tried  here  for  murder,  how 
would  the  whole  world  deride  the  suggestion  that  he 
should  not  have  a  jury  trial  because  he  is  a  foreigner, 
—  because  he  is  not  one  of  the  "people,"  and  so  not 
a  party  to  the  constitution  ! 

So  the  constitution  does  not  say,  in  suits  between 
merchant  and  merchant,  or  between  landlord  and  ten 
ant,  and  so  forth,  "  the  right  of  trial  by  jury  shall  be 
preserved  ;  "  but  it  says,  "  In  suits  at  common  law, 
where  the  value  in  controversy  shall  exceed  twenty 
dollars."  The  right  is  not  determined  by  the  charac 
ter  of  the  litigants,  but  by  the  nature  of  the  action. 
The  constitution  does  not  care  who  the  parties  are,  — 
man,  woman,  bond  or  free,  —  it  is  all  the  same.  As 
soon  as  parties  appear  upon  the  record,  the  right  to 
trial  by  jury  attaches.  The  suit,  and  not  the  civil 
condition  of  the  litigants  who  instituted  or  who  defend 
it,  tests  and  determines  the  jury  question. 

In  the  case  of  Lee  vs.  Lee,  before  cited,  the  law 
allowed  an  appeal  only  in  case  the  sum  in  controversy 
should  amount  to  one  thousand  dollars.  The  appellant 
was  of  African  descent,  and  therefore,  within  that 
jurisdiction,  presumptively  a  slave  ;  not  presumptively 
a  freeman,  as  every  man  is  in  a  free  state  ;  and,  if  a 
slave,  then  he  could  own  no  property ;  for,  by  the  cruel 
law  of  slavery,  every  master  may  rob  his  slave  legally 
of  all  that  he  earns,  or  finds,  or  otherwise  receives. 
Yet  the  supreme  court  sustained  the  appeal.  Why 
was  not  so  astute  an  exception  as  this  then  taken  ?  — 
an  exception  which,  if  they  have  a  bar  in  Pandemo 
nium,  would  have  done  honor  to  one  of  its  counsellors. 
Why  was  it  not  said  that  a  slave  was  no  party  to  the 


424 

law,  and  therefore  not  entitled  to  its  benefits  ?  No 
reason  can  be  assigned  why  a  slave  is  not  as  much 
under  the  protection  of  a  constitution  made  for  the 
"  people,"  as  under  the  protection  of  a  law  made  for 
the  u  people."  Yet  here,  even  in  the  case  of  a  pre 
sumptive  slave,  a  right  was  acknowledged,  which 
some  freemen,  in  free  states,  deny  to  presumptive 
freemen. 

I  have  here  been  combating  the  argument,  that 
because  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  is  aimed  at  slaves,  no 
freeman  has  any  ground  of  complaint  against  it,  even 
though  he  should  be  converted  into  a  chattel  under  it. 
He  must  console  himself  under  the  doom  of  intermi 
nable  bondage,  with  the  patriotic  and  pious  reflection 
that  he  is  only  suffering,  as  an  exception,  to  prove  the 
general  excellence  of  the  law  ;  and  he  must  leave  this 
consolation  also  to  his  enslaved  children.  For,  in  his 
case,  it  is  said  that  eternal  slavery  is  only  one  of  those 
exceptions  in  the  working  of  the  law  which  proves 
the  rule  of  its  general  excellence.  This  argument  I 
hold  to  be  eminently  sophistical  and  cruelly  oppressive. 
But  if  any  one  believes  it  to  be  a  sound  argument, 
then  I  hold  him  to  all  fair  deductions  resulting  from 
it,  —  of  which  the  following  is  clearly  one  :  — 

On  the  same  ground  on  which  Congress  passes  a 
law  for  escaped  slaves,  let  every  free  state  pass  a  law 
for  resident  freemen.  The  presumption  in  every  free 
state  being,  that  all  men  within  its  borders  are  free, 
let  every  such  state  give  the  trial  by  jury,  in  all  cases 
in  which  personal  liberty  is  involved,  to  every  one 
who  shall  ask  for  it,  and  who  has  not  once  had  it  in  a 
litigation  with  the  same  party,  on  the  same  subject- 
matter.  According  to  the  argument  I  have  been  con 
sidering,  no  slaveholder  can  complain  of  such  a  law  ; 
for,  by  its  very  terms,  it  applies  only  to  freemen.  The 
law  of  Congress  applying  only  to  slaves,  and  the  sup 
posed  state  law  applying  only  to  freemen,  there  is  no 


425 

conflict  between  them.  And  if,  by  accident  or  mis 
take,  any  real  slave  should  take  shelter  under  such  a 
state  law,  and  should  escape  a  life  of  horrible  bondage, 
it  will  be  only  one  of  those  mistakes  which  may  arise 
under  the  purest  administration  of  justice.  It  will 
answer  quite  as  well  as  its  counterpart  case,  to  stand 
as  one  of  those  exceptions  in  the  working  of  a  rule 
which  prove  its  general  excellence.  If  the  occasional 
subjection  of  a  freeman  instead  of  a  slave,  to  all  the 
horrors  of  bondage,  constitutes  no  valid  objection  to 
the  United  States  law,  then,  surely,  the  occasional 
enfranchisement  of  a  slave  from  a  bondage  that  was 
always  unjust  and  cruel,  should  constitute  no  objection 
to  the  law  of  the  free  state.  If  this  Fugitive  Slave 
law  continues  for  a  single  year,  I  hope  every  free 
state  will  pass  a  law  inflicting  condign  punishment 
upon  every  man  who  directly  or  indirectly  assists  in 
sending  any  man  into  southern  bondage,  unless  he  can 
prove  before  a  jury  that  the  man  so  sent  was  a  slave. 

So  far,  I  have  considered  the  question,  whether  a 
fair  interpretation  of  the  constitution  does  not  secure 
the  jury  trial  in  every  free  state,  to  an  alleged  fugitive, 
and  empower  him  to  demand  it  as  a  matter  of  right. 

But  this  is  a  strange  question  to  discuss  in  a  re 
publican  government.  The  proper  question  is,  not 
whether  the  constitution  expressly  demands  the  jury 
trial,  but  whether  it  will,  by  any  fair  implication,  allow 
it.  The  only  point  which  a  republican  judge  or  citi 
zen  can,  with  decency,  make  on  this  subject  is,  Does 
the  constitution  forbid,  prohibit,  deny,  such  trial  ?  — 
for,  if  it  does  not,  then  the  jury  should  be  granted  of 
course.  In  a  free  country,  under  a  free  government, 
where  the  idea  has  become  traditional,  where  the  doc 
trine  has  become  a  household  doctrine,  that  the  trial 
by  jury  is  the  palladium  of  our  civil  and  religious  lib 
erties,  is  it  not  amazing  that  we  should  find  men  who 
seem  eager  to  avoid  this  form  of  trial,  rather  than 
36* 


426 

zealous  to  grasp  it  ?  It  is  the  saddest  of  spectacles  ; 
it  argues  the  most  mournful  degeneracy,  to  see  the 
children  at  this  early  day,  from  grovelling  notions  of 
ambition  and  of  wealth,  abandoning  those  noble  prin 
ciples  of  freedom  for  which  their  fathers  so  lately 
shed  their  blood.  Wherever  the  constitution  allows 
the  trial  by  jury,  in  a  matter  of  human  liberty,  in 
Heaven's  name  let  us  have  it.  Let  Russia  and  Austria 
curtail  and  deny  this  privilege  of  freemen  ;  let  the 
tyrant,  arid  the  tyrant's  minions  among  ourselves, 
explore  the  musty  records  of  darker  times,  to  find 
precedents  against  it ;  let  them  strive,  by  their  shallow 
sophistries  and  plausibilities,  to  gloss  over  this  ravish 
ing  of  liberty  and  life  from  beings  created  in  the 
image  of  God  ;  but  let  every  true  republican,  when 
ever,  in  the  disposal  of  these  momentous  interests,  the 
constitution  will,  by  fair  construction,  sanction  it,  cling 
to  the  trial  by  jury,  as  to  the  only  plank  that  will  save 
himj  —  ay,  the  only  one  that  will  save  the  human 
race,  —  from  being  again  ingulfed  in  the  vortex  of 
despotism.  The  enemy  of  the  trial  by  jury,  wherever 
human  liberty  is  concerned,  is  the  enemy  of  human 
liberty  and  of  the  human  race.  The  friends  of  a 
repeal  of  this  law,  then,  need  not  discuss  the  question 
whether  the  constitution  does  expressly  confer  the 
right  of  trial  by  jury  upon  the  alleged  fugitive,  for  it  is 
enough  for  them  if  the  constitution  does  not  take  it 
away. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  in  both  of  the  bankrupt 
laws  passed  by  the  United  States,  it  was  expressly 
provided,  that  when  the  commissioners  should  declare 
any  person  to  be  a  bankrupt,  he  should  have  the  right 
to  a  trial  by  jury  to  annul  their  decision.  Thus,  when 
the  law  proposed,  not  to  appropriate  a  man's  property, 
but  merely  to  enable  his  creditors  to  receive  it  in  pay 
ment  of  their  debts,  the  jury  trial  was  secured  to  him  ; 
but  here,  where  the  direct  purpose  is  to  strip  a  man 


427 

of  his  liberty,  and  of  his  property  in  himself,  the  jury 
trial  is  denied. 

This  seems  an  appropriate  place  to  consider  the  fur 
ther  irrelevant  suggestion,  sometimes  obtruded,  namely, 
that  an  alleged  fugitive  is  not  deprived  of  a  trial  by 
jury,  because  he  may  have  it  in  the  state  to  which  he 
is  carried. 

Here  the  pro-slavery  advocate  admits,  at  least  for  ar 
gument's  sake,  that  the  alleged  fugitive  has  a  right,  at 
some  time,  and  some  where,  to  the  jury  trial.  If  so, 
then  there  are  numerous  and  powerful  reasons  why 
this  trial  should  be  had  in  the  state  in  which  he  is 
found,  rather  than  in  that  to  which  he  may  be  trans 
ported.  I  will  advert  to  a  few  of  these  reasons. 

1.  Slaves  are  held  to  be  personal  property.     Trover 
lies  for   their  value  where  they  have  been  unlawfully 
converted.     Trespass  is  the  remedy  for  an  injury  done 
to  them.     According  to  the  laws  of  all  the  slave  states, 
they  are  the  subject  of  larceny.     Suits  to  recover  them, 
or  to  recover  damages  for  an  injury  done  to  them,  are 
personal  actions;  and  in  personal  actions  it  is  required, 
by  all  the  precedents  and  all  the  analogies  of  the  com 
mon  law,  that  the  action  should  be  tried  in  the  juris 
diction  where  the  writ  is  served.    By  the  common  law, 
personal  actions  are  transitory.    They  are  to  be  brought 
where  the  defendant  resides  ;   or,  at  least,  where    the 
property  which    is   claimed   lies.     In   the   case   of  an 
alleged  slave,  both  the  defendant  and  the  property  are 
where  he  is  found.     According  to  the  usages  and  prin 
ciples  of  the  common  law,  therefore,  the  trial   should 
be  there. 

2.  Before   trial   and  judgment,  the  parties  are  like 
any  other  parties  before  the  court,  or  they  should   be 
so.     The  claimant  stands  upon  the  merits  of  his  claim  • 
the  respondent  upon  those  of  his  defence..    It  may  be 
inconvenient  for  a  Texan  claimant  to  prove   his  right 
to  an  alleged  fugitive  in  Massachusetts ;  but  it  will  be 


428 

indefinitely  more  inconvenient  for  a  citizen  of  Massa 
chusetts  to  prove  his  freedom  in  Texas.  If  the  trial  is 
in  Massachusetts,  and  the  plaintiff  prevails,  he  takes 
immediate  possession  of  his  slave,  and  is  invested  at 
once  with  all  the  rights  which  the  rigors  of  the  slave 
law  so  abundantly  give.  But  if  the  trial  is  in  Texas, 
whither  the  defendant  has  been  forcibly  exiled,  and 
there  he  prevails,  who  is  to  reimburse  or  recompense 
him  for  his  intermediate  bondage  ;  for  being  dragged 
from  his  home  ;  torn  from  wife,  children,  and  friends  ; 
for  being  plunged,  perhaps  for  years,  into  the  hell  of 
slavery  itself,  with  all  the  untold  agonies  of  an  appre 
hended  slavery  for  life  ? 

What  Judge  Story  says  respecting  the  right  of  all 
persons  who  are  accused  of  crime  to  be  tried  by  a 
"  jury  of  the  state  and  district  wherein  the  crime  shall 
have  been  committed,"  applies  witfi  full  force  to  a 
trial  for  liberty.  "  The  object  of  this  clause, "says  he, 
"  is  to  secure  the  party  accused  from  being  dragged  to 
trial  in  some  distant  state,  away  from  his  friends,  and 
witnesses,  and  neighborhood."  u  Besides  this,"  he 
continues,  "  a  trial  in  a  distant  state  or  territory  might 
subject  the  party  to  the  most  oppressive  expenses,  or 
perhaps  even  to  the  inability  of.  procuring  the  proper 
witnesses  to  establish  his  innocence."  (3  Com.  654.) 
For  "  innocence  "  read  liberty,  and  the  argument  in 
behalf  of  the  alleged  criminal  becomes  applicable  to 
the  alleged  fugitive.  And  why  should  the  alleged 
fugitive  be  treated  less  mercifully  than  the  alleged 
felon?  The  law  is  unspeakably  rigorous  in  the  case 
of  an  alleged  fugitive,  but  softens  into  mercy  over  an 
alleged  pirate  or  murderer. 

If  the  trial,  then,  is  where  all  the  practice  and  prin 
ciples  of  the  common  law  indicate  that  it  should  be, 
no  great  or  irreparable  injury  is  done  ;  no  inconvenience 
even  is  suffered  beyond  that  which  is  always  suffered 
in  enforcing  a  claim  in  a  foreign  and  distant  jurisdic- 


420 

tion.  But  if  a  freemen  is  carried  away,  a  grievous  and 
intolerable  wrong  is  done  ;  a  wound  is  inflicted  which 
mortal  medicaments  cannot  heal,  nor  the  longest  con 
tinued  punishment  of  the  malefactor  ever  expiate. 

3.  By  transferring  the  trial  to  the  place  of  the  claim 
ant's  domicile,  an  effective,  and,  as  it  seems  to  rne,  a 
most  iniquitous  advantage  is  given  him,  in  regard  to 
evidence,  while   the   respondent   is  subjected  to  cruel 
disabilities.     By  the  laws  of  all  but  one  or  two  of  the 
slave  states,  persons  of  African  descent,  whether  slave 
or   free,   are    declared    incompetent   witnesses    against 
white  men.     The  freeman,  then,  by  being  removed  as 
a  fugitive  into   a  slave   state,  may  lose  his   evidence, 
which,  under  such    circumstances,   is   the  loss  of  his 
liberty.      This  violation,  therefore,  of  the  principles  of 
the  common  law,  in  regard  to  the  place  of  trial,  is,  to 
him,  of  the  most  momentous  consequence.     It  is  not 
true,  then,  in  any  just  sense,  that   the  trial  by  jury  is 
still  "  preserved"  to  the  alleged  fugitive,  notwithstand 
ing   his  removal  to  a  slave  state.     The  common  law 
trial,  as  inclusive  of  the  right  to  adduce  common  law 
evidence,  is  not  "  preserved." 

4.  But   not  only   is  the  evidence   different,  but,  in 
some  of  the  slave  states,  the  law  itself  is  different;  so 
that  one  man  may  carry  another  by  force  into  a  juris 
diction  where  the  law  will  account  him  a  slave,  when, 
had  he  been  tried  where  he  was  found,  the  law  would 
declare   him  free,  —  the  facts  in  both  cases  being  the 
same. 

Take  the  law  of  Kentucky,  for  instance, — and  I 
refer  to  this  state  because  its  slave  code  is  of  a  milder 
type  than  that  of  most  of  the  Southern  States,  its 
dreadful  rigors  being  mitigated  by  an  infusion  of  more 
humanity. 

By  the  laws  of  Kentucky,  a  master  may  carry  a  slave 
in  iransilu,  through  a  free  state,  or  he  may  allow  his 
slave  to  go  temporarily  into  a  free  state,  without  a 


430 

forfeiture  of  the  legal  right  to  hold  him.  Graham  vs. 
Strader  fy  Gorman,  5  Ben.  Mimroe,  173,  (1844;) 
Davis  vs.  Tingle  et  al,  8  Ben.  Mimroe,  545,  (1848;) 
Collins  vs.  America,  9  Ben.  Munroe,  565,  (1849;) 
Bushe's  Reps.  vs.  White,  3  Munroe,  104  ;  Rankin  vs. 
Lydia,  2  A.  K.  Marshall,  468,  (1820.) 

In  Massachusetts  certainly,  and  I  suppose  in  most  of 
the  Northern  States,  all  such  cases  would  be  decided 
in  favor  of  the  respondent.* 

Now,  what  greater  outrage  can  be  inflicted  upon  a 
man  than  to  seize,  and  bind,  and  carry  him  into  a  for 
eign  jurisdiction,  where  not  only  is  the  evidence  dif 
ferent,  by  which  his  rights  may  be  proved,  but  where 
the  law  also  is  different,  by  which  his  rights  are  to 
be  adjudicated.  In  Holland,  the  killing  of  a  stork 
once  was,  if  it  be  not  now,  punishable  with  death  ; 
because  this  bird  devours  the  animals  that  would 
otherwise  bore  through  and  undermine  its  ocean- 
barring  dikes.  In  a  neighboring  country,  the  killing 
of  a  stork  may  not  be  merely  blameless,  but  praise 
worthy.  What  an  atrocity  it  would  be  to  seize  a 
man  in  the  latter  country,  and  carry  him  to  Holland 
to  be  tried  and  executed  for  doing  an  act  which,  ac 
cording  to  the  law  of  the  place  where  he  had  a  right 
to  be  tried,  may  have  been  not  only  innocent,  but 
laudable !  I  leave  you,  sir,  to  make  the  application. 

5.  But  what  must  shock  every  man  who  possesses 
any  just  appreciation  of  the  value  of  human  liberty, 
or  has  any  just  perception  of  the  principles  on  which 
it  is  founded,  is,  that  under  the  Fugitive  Slave  law, 
the  plaintiff  gets  possession  and  control  not  only  of  the 
chattel  or  article  of  property  claimed,  but  of  the  de 
fendant  himself.  He  gets  command,  not  only  of  the 
thing  in  litigation,  but  of  the  body  and  soul  of  the 
litigant.  A  Boston  or  New  York  merchant  would  con- 

*  Such,  also  is  the  law  in  Louisiana.     See  Louis  vs.  Marot,  9  Louis. 
Hep.  473  ;  Smith  vs.  Smith,  13  Louis.  Rep.  441. 


431 

sider  it  a  grievous  hardship,  if  a  southern  adventurer 
could  go  there  and  seize  upon  all  his  property,  trans 
port  it  to  Mobile,  or  New  Orleans,  and  compel  the 
owner  to  follow  it  and  try  title  to  it,  in  the  place  of 
the  captor's  domicile.  Still  more  grievous  would  the 
hardship  become,  if,  under  the  new  jurisdiction,  the 
defendant  might  be  deprived  of  the  evidence  which, 
at  home,  would  be  decisive  of  his  rights,  or  find  him 
self  controlled  by  adverse  laws  which  he  never  had 
helped  to  frame.  But  what  an  extreme  of  barbarous 
tyranny  would  it  be,  if,  beyond  all  these  enormities, 
the  southern  plaintiff  could  seize  him  too, — the  de- 
; 'iiilant  himself,  —  the  alleged  debtor, — and  grasp 
him  in  his  own  iron  hand,  obtaining  supreme  control 
<>vor  his  body  by  force,  and  over  his  mind  by  fear; 
could  command  his  powers  of  locomotion,  so  that  he 
could  go  only  where  the  will  of  his  master  would  per 
mit :  could  control  his  speech  and  his  vision,  so  that  he 
could  consult  with  no  counsel,  and  could  see  no  friend 
hut  such  as  were  in  his  master's  pay;  and,  to  enforce 
his  authority,  could  imprison  him,  and  starve  him,  and 
scourge  him,  and  mutilate  him,  if  he  but  so  much  as 
uttered  a  whisper  that  he  had  a  right  to  have  a  trial  by 
his  country,  or  opened  his  lips  in  prayer  to  God  to 
break  the  fetters  of  his  iniquitous  bondage  ! 

To  tamper  with  the  witnesses  of  the  adverse  party, 
or  endeavor  to  suborn  his  counsel  to  violate  their  duty 
to  their  client,  is  not  only  an  act  of  the  grossest  base 
ness,  but  would  subject  the  offender  to  penal  retribu 
tion.  Yet  what  need  would  there  ever  be  of  corrupt 
ing  witnesses  or  suborning  counsel,  if  a  party  could 
get  bodily  possession  and  absolute  control  of  his  antag 
onist  himself? 

Does  not  every  one  see  that,  in  ninety-nine  cases  in 
a  hundred,  a  control  over  the  defendant's  person  and 
will  would  be  a  control  over  his  case  ?  His  rights 
would  be  lost  in  his  enforced  disability  to  defend  them. 


432 

You  might  as  well  put  out  a  man's  eyes,  and  then  talk 
of  his  right  in  the  common  sunlight.  In  Baltimore, 
or  Louisville,  a  kidnapped  freeman  might  find  an  op 
portunity  of  self-redemption ;  but  such  a  captive  will 
never  be  carried  to  Baltimore  or  Louisville.  He  will 
be  sent  to  some  interior  region,  perhaps  fifty  miles  from 
any  court,  or  the  residence  of  any  counsel,  where  he 
may  never  have  an  opportunity  to  speak  to  a  white 
man  unless  it  be  to  a  taskmaster,  who  is  paid  to  guard 
and  to  silence  him. 

The  authors  of  the  Federalist  deemed  the  principle 
of  excluding  an  interested  party  from  all  power  of 
deciding  his  own  cause  to  be  so  important,  that  they 
laid  down  the  following  doctrine  :  "  No  man  ought 
certainly  to  be  a  judge  in  his  own  cause,  or  in  any 
cause,  in  respect  to  which  he  has  the  least  interest  or 
bias."  (No.  80.)  Yet  the  only  chance  which  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law  allows  to  a  freeman,  when  carried 
into  bondage,  is  that  which  he  may  exercise  while 
under  the  absolute  control  of  his  robber  master. 

But  more  than  this :  the  law  imposes  no  obligation 
upon  the  claimant  to  carry  his  victim  to  the  state  he 
is  charged  to  have  escaped  from.  A  man  charged  to 
have  escaped  from  Texas  may  be  carried  to  Florida. 
Nay,  he  may  not  be  carried  to  any  state  in  this  Union  ; 
but  may  be  sent  to  Cuba  or  Brazil ;  beyond  hope,  and 
into  the  outer  darkness  of  despair. 

All  the  arguments  which  I  have  ever  heard,  or  seen, 
on  this  point,  gratuitously  assume,  that  the  persons 
reclaimed  and  transported  will  have  an  honest  master, 
be  surrounded  by  kind  friends,  and  have  a  lawyer  at 
hand  whom  they  can  consult  with  every  day,  and  money 
in  their  pockets  to  fee  him.  Would  such  be  the  case  of 
a  kidnapped  freeman  ?  Would  a  wretch,  vile  enough 
to  rob  a  man  of  his  liberty,  carry  him  five  hundred  or 
a  thousand  miles,  and  then  go  to  a  shire  town  during 
a  session  of  the  court,  and  give  his  pretended  slave  a 


433 

purse  of  money  with  which  to  fee  a  lawyer  for  inves 
tigating  his  right  to  freedom  ?  No !  the  man  who 
knows,  or  suspects,  that  he  has  seized  a  freeman,  or 
that  his  victim  even  believes  himself  to  be  a  freeman, 
and  will  put  the  claimant  to  the  trouble  and  expense 
of  a  trial,  will  plunge  that  freeman  into  the  abyss  of 
bondage,  where  no  ray  of  hope  may  ever  reach  him, 
and  where  his  voice  will  be  hushed  as  in  the  silence 
of  death. 

Another  objection  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  is,  that 
it  confers  judicial  power  upon  persons  who  are  not 
judges.  Here  we  are  not  left  to  inference  or  construc 
tion,  but  can  stand  on  the  plain  words  of  the  consti 
tution.  The  third  article  declares,  — 

"  The  judicial  power  of  the  United  States  shall  be  vested 
in  one  supreme  court,  and  in  such  inferior  courts  as  the  Con 
gress  may  from  time  to  time  ordain  and  establish.  The  judges 
both  of  the  supreme  and  inferior  courts  shall  hold  their  offices 
during  good  behavior,  and  shall  at  stated  times  receive  for 
their  services  a  compensation  which  shall  not  be  diminished 
during  their  continuance  in  office."  —  Art.  III.  §  1. 

Here  I  hold  it  to  be  clear  beyond  dispute,  that  the 
"judges"  mentioned  in  the  second  sentence  of  the 
above  section  are  the  members  of  the  "  supreme  court  " 
and  "  inferior  courts  "  mentioned  in  the  first  section, 
and  no  other.  If  so,  then  there  can  be  no  doubt  about 
the  tenure  of  their  office,  and  the  mode  of  their  ap 
pointment,  compensation,  and  removal. 

By  sec.  2,  of  Art.  II.,  the  President  "shall  nominate, 
and  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  Senate 
shall  appoint,"  "judges  of  the  supreme  court,  and  all 
other  officers  of  the  United  States,  whose  appoint 
ments  are  not  herein  otherwise  provided  for,  and  which 
shall  be  established  by  law." 

The  appointment  of  no  judge  of  any  court  is  "  other 
wise  provided  for  in  the  constitution  ;  "  and  therefore 
37 


434 

the  appointment  of  all  the  judges  in  whom  "  the  ju 
dicial  power  of  the  United  States  is  vested,"  belongs 
by  the  constitution  to  the  President  and  Seriate;  and 
this  "judicial  power"  cannot  be  delegated  to,  nor  ex 
ercised  by,  any  persons  not  so  appointed. 

The  courts  may  appoint  "inferior  officers,"  such  as 
clerks,  criers,  or  masters  in  chancery  ;  but  these  are  riot 
'•judges ;  "  nor  would  any  one  of  them  singly,  nor  any 
number  of  them  associated  together,  constitute  a 
"court,"  within  the  meaning  of  the  first  section  of 
the  third  article.  Were  such  the  case,  then  they  might 
have  power  to  appoint  "  inferior  officers,"  and  so  on, 
by  sub-delegation,  indefinitely. 

The  constitution  also  defines  what  it  means  by  "ju 
dicial  power."  It  says,  "The  judicial  power  shall 
extend  to  all  cases  in  law  and  equity  arising  under  this 
constitution,  the  la\vs  of  the  United  States,"  &c. 

Now,  my  objection  is,  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  law 
requires  the  creation  of  a  large  body  of  officers  who 
are  not  "judges,"  but  whom  it  purports  to  invest  with 
"judicial  powers." 

They  are  not  "judges,"  because  they  are  not  nomi 
nated  by  the  President  and  confirmed  by  the  Senate, 
as  all  "judges  "  must  be. 

They  are  not  "judges  "  again,  because,  if  they  were, 
they  must  hold  their  offices  "  during  good  behavior." 
But  the  commissioners  may  be  unmade  on  the  day 
they  are  made.  "Judges"  can  be  removed  only 
by  conviction,  on  impeachment.  Commissioners  may 
be  removed  by  the  court  that  appointed  them.  Not 
the  President,  nor  the  Senate,  nor  both  together,  can 
remove  a  judge,  unless  by  the  initiatory  and  concurrent 
action  of  the  House  of  Representatives.  An  "  inferior 
court  "  can  eject  a  commissioner  without  notice. 

Even  if  Congress  had  declared,  by  express  words, 
that  the  commissioners  appointed  by  the  circuit  and 
district  courts  should  be  taken  and  held  to  be  "  judges," 


435 

it  would  not  make  them  so  ;  for  Congress  cannot  del 
egate  any  power  to  judges  to  appoint  judges,  nor 
to  courts  to  make  courts.  If  Congress  could  not  do 
this  by  express  enactment,  how  can  it  do  so  by  impli 
cation  ? 

Commissioners  are  not  "judges,"  also,  because  no 
person  can  be  a  "judge"  who  is  not  entitled,  "at 
stated  times,  to  receive  for  his  services  a  compensation 
which  shall  not  be  diminished  during  his  continuance 
in  office." 

This  provision  necessitates  the  conclusion  that  all 
"judges"  must  be  entitled  to  salaries  payable  periodi 
cally.  These  salaries  are  in  no  case  to  depend  upon 
the  amount  or  the  quality  of  their  labors,  —  far  less,  if 
possible,  upon  their  deciding  the  cases  that  are  brought 
before  them  for  the  plaintiff  or  for  the  defendant.  One 
"judge"  may  have  an  enviable  reputation  for  talent 
and  integrity,  and  thus  attract  suitors  to  his  court. 
Another  may  be  as  corrupt  as  Lord  Jeffries,  and  repel 
all  honest  litigants  from  him.  But,  in  either  case,  he 
has  a  right  to  a  compensation  which  shall  not  be  di 
minished  during  his  continuance  in  office.  Each  year 
gives  him  a  definite,  unchanged  sum  of  money. 

But  the  commissioner  is  paid  by  fees,  and  the  amount 
of  his  fees  depends  partly  upon  the  number  of  cases  he 
decides,  and  partly  also  upon  the  party  in  whose  favor 
he  decides.  If  he  decides  that  a  man  is  free,  he  re 
ceives  five  dollars.  If  he  decides  that  he  is  a  slave,  he 
receives  ten.  If  the  commissioner  is  acceptable  to 
slave  hunters,  suitors  multiply.  If  obnoxious  to  them, 
his  docket  is  bare  of  a  case.  He  is  entitled  to  his 
compensation,  not  "  at  stated  times,"  but  on  the  deter 
mination  of  each  case.  His  compensation  may  be 
diminished,  or  it  may  cease  altogether,  during  his  con 
tinuance  in  office.  Each  year  does  not  give  him  any 
definite,  unchanged  sum  of  money. 

The  "judge  "  must  be  paid  by  the  government,  and 


436 

is  independent  of  all  the  parties  before  his  court. 
The  commissioner  is  never  to  be  paid  by  the  gov 
ernment,  but  is  wholly  dependent  for  his  fees  upon 
the  claimant  whose  case  he  tries.  The  government 
guaranties  the  payment  of  the  "judge,"  but  it  can 
never  inquire  or  know  whether  the  commissioner  be 
paid  or  not. 

By  the  sixth  article  of  the  constitution,  all  "judicial 
officers  "  must  make  oath  or  affirmation  that  they  will 
support  the  constitution.  But  there  is  no  law  requir 
ing  these  commissioners  to  take  an  oath ;  and  as  a 
matter  of  practice,  in  some  parts  of  the  country  at  least, 
it  is  known  that  they  take  no  such  oath. 

Now,  by  the  act,  a  portion  of  the  "judicial  power" 
of  the  United  States,  the  whole  of  which  is,  by  the 
constitution,  vested  in  one  "supreme  court,"  and  in 
"  inferior  courts,"  is  given  to  the  commissioners.  The 
fourth  section  says  they  "shall  have  concurrent  juris 
diction  with  the  judges  of  the  circuit  and  district  courts 
of  the  United  States."  If  the  power  of  these  courts, 
in  the  premises,  is  judicial,  then  the  power  of  the  com 
missioners,  being  the  same,  is  judicial. 

The  attorney-general  of  the  United  States,  in  a  writ 
ten  opinion,  given  by  command  of  the  President,  de 
clares  that  this  power,  so  given  to  the  commissioners, 
is  judicial.  The  following  are  his  words  :  — 

"  These  officers,  [the  commissioners,]  and  each  of  them, 
have  judicial  power,  and  jurisdiction  to  hear,  examine,  and  de 
cide  the  case." 

"  The  certificate  to  be  granted  to  the  owner  is  to  be  regard 
ed  as  the  act  and  judgment  of  a  judicial  tribunal  having  com 
petent  jurisdiction." 

"  Congress  has  constituted  a  tribunal  with  exclusive  juris 
diction  to  determine  summarily,  and  without  appeal,  who  are 
fugitives  from  service.  The  judgment  of  the  tribunal  created 
by  this  act  is  conclusive  upon  all  tribunals." 

Such  is  the  opinion  of  the  attorney-general  of  the 


437 

United  States,  given  upon  the  precise  point,  by  order 
of  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

I  Jut  the  point  needed  no  authority  to  sustain  it.  It 
results  inevitably  from  the  very  nature  of  the  power 
conferred  by  the  law.  The  decision  of  the  commis 
sioner  is  to  be  final  and  conclusive,  and  the  subject- 
matter  of  the  decision  is  liberty  and  property.  The 
case  cannot  be  reheard  or  reexamined  by  any  judge, 
or  by  any  court,  of  any  state,  or  of  the  United  States. 
The  decision  acts  in  rein  and  in  pcrsonam.  It  deliv 
ers  the  property  to  the  claimant,  and  puts  the  body  of 
the  defendant  into  his  custody.  From  that  moment, 
if  the  law  has  any  validity,  the  defendant  is  the  slave 
of  the  plaintiff,  by  force  of  a  "judicial "  decision.  The 
plaintiff,  thenceforth,  may  control  his  actions,  his 
words,  his  food,  his  sleep.  If  he  chooses  to  exercise 
his  authority  in  such  a  way,  he  can  order  his  victim 
to  carry  him  home  on  his  back,  and  make  him  bear 
the  loathsome  burden  of  his  person  as  well  as  of  his 
will.  Now,  to  say  that  the  power  which  effects  these 
results  is  not  a  judicial  power,  is  to  do  violence  to  lan 
guage,  and  to  commit  a  fraud  upon  the  inherent  nature 
of  ideas.  In  no  case  known  to  the  common  law,  or 
indeed  to  any  other  law,  is  a  plaintiff  invested  with 
full  rights,  except  after  final  judgment. 

If,  then,  this  power  is  a  "  judicial  power,"  the  con 
stitution  peremptorily  forbids  that  it  should  be  vested 
anywhere  but  in  a  "court,"  whose  "judges"  are 
nominated,  confirmed,  sworn,  hold  office,  are  paid,  and 
are  removable,  according  to  its  requirements.  Look  at 
the  constitutional  distribution  of  powers.  By  the  first 
article,  all  legislative  power  "  shall  be  vested  in  a  Con 
gress."  By  the  second  article,  the  "executive  power 
shall  be  vested  in  a  President."  And  by  the  third  arti 
cle,  "  the.  judicial  power  shall  be  vested  "  in  the  courts. 
And  it  was  just  as  competent  for  Congress  to  in 
vest  "commissioners"  with  supreme  "executive"  or 
37* 


438 

" legislative"  power,  as  to  vest  them  with  "judicial" 
power. 

If,  by  good  fortune,  or  by  miraculous  interposition, 
a  captured  freeman  should  afterwards  obtain  a  hearing 
in  a  court  of  the  state  to  which  he  had  been  carried, 
such  hearing  would,  in  no  sense,  be  in  the  nature  of  a 
review  of  the  former  case,  either  by  appeal,  writ  of  er 
ror,  mandamus,  or  certiorari.  It  would  be  by  the  insti 
tution  of  another  suit,  under  another  government.  The 
relation  of  the  parties  would  be  reversed.  The  respond 
ent  who  was  kidnapped  must  be  plaintiff,  the  plaintiff 
kidnapper,  or  some  one  claiming  under  him,  must  be 
defendant.  Were  the  various  possessory  writs  known 
to  the  English  common  law  any  the  less  "  suits  at 
common  law"?  or  were  the  courts  that  tried  them  any 
the  less  judicial  tribunals,  because  a  writ  of  right  could 
be  afterwards  brought,  in  which  the  previous  judg 
ments  could  not  be  pleaded  in  bar,  and  would  be 
neither  estoppel  nor  proof  of  title  ? 

But  to  avoid  the  force  of  this,  it  has  been  said,  that 
the  proceedings  before  the  commissioner  do  not  consti 
tute  a  '-case,"  within  the  meaning  of  the  second  sec 
tion  of  the  third  article,  which  extends  the  "judicial 
power  "  of  the  United  States  to  all  "  cases  "  in  law  and 
equity.  Instead  of  being  a  "  case,"  it  is  said  to  be  only 
a  summary  inquiry,  designed  to  operate  as  a  condition 
for  executive  action,  in  order  to  accomplish  a  special 
and  limited  object;  like  the  inquiry,  who  are  rightful 
claimants  of  money  held  by  the  government,  under  a 
treaty,  and  how  much  belongs  to  each  one.  It  is  also 
said,  that  if  a  construction  so  literal  is  to  be  put  upon 
the  words  -'judicial  power,"  then  no  master  in  chan 
cery  could  act  in  behalf  of  the  courts  in  equity  cases  ; 
no  commissioner  of  bankruptcy  could  be  appointed 
under  a  bankrupt  law,  &c. 

In  answer  to  the  first  position,  that  the  proceedings 
for  the  reclamation  of  fugitive  slaves  do  not  constitute 


439 

"  a  case,"  we  have  the  most  explicit  declaration  of  the 
supreme  court  in  more  cases  than  one.  In  Prigg's 
case,  16  Peters,  616,  the  court  say, — 

".  It  is  plain,  then,  that  while  a  claim  is  made  by  the  owner, 
out  of  possession,  for  the  delivery  of  a  slave,  it  must  be  made, 
if  ut  all,  against  some  other  person  ;  and  inasmuch  as  the  right 
is  a  right  of  property  capable  of  being  recognized,  and  assert 
ed  by  proceedings  before  a  court  of  justice,  between  parties 
adverse  to  each  other,  ifbonstitutes,  in  the  strictest  sense,  a 
controversy  between  the  parties,  and  a  CASE,  arising  under 
the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  within  the  express  dele 
gation  of  JUDICIAL  POWER  given  by  that  instrument." 

44  A  CASE  in  law  or  equity  consists  of  the  right  of  the  one 
party  as  well  as  of  the  other,  and  may  truly  be  said  to  arise 
under  the  constitution,  or  a  law  of  the  United  States,  when 
ever  its  correct  decision  depends  ON  THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF 
EITHER."  —  Cohens  vs.  Virginia,  6  Wheat.  379,  (5  Cond. 
Rep.  101.) 

Indeed,  almost  every  page  of  the  opinion  of  the 
court,  in  Cohens  vs.  Virginia,  may  be  referred  to,  to 
show  that  they  used  the  word  "case  "  in  a  sense  that 
embraces  the  proceedings  for  the  reclamation  of  a  fugi 
tive  slave.  If  so,  then  any  tribunal,  having  jurisdiction 
over  such  a  "case,"  is  vested  with  a  part  of  the  "judi 
cial  "  power  of  the  United  States. 

In  defining  the  word  "  case,"  as  it  occurs  in  this 
article,  Judge  Story  says, — 

"It  is  clear  that  the  judicial  department  is  authorized  to  ex 
ercise  jurisdiction  to  the  full  extent  of  the  constitution,  laws, 
and  treaties  of  the  United  States,  whenever  any  question  re 
specting  them  shall  assume  such  a  form  that,  the  judicial  power 
\n  capable  of  acting  upon  it.  When  it  has  assumed  such  a 
form,  it  then  becomes  a  case"  —  3  Comm.  507. 

"  A  case,  then,  in  the  sense  of  this  clause  of  the  constitu 
tion,  arises,  when  some  subject  touching  the  constitution,  laws, 
or  treaties  of  the  United  States,  is  submitted  to  the  courts  by 
a  party  who  asserts  his  rights  in  the  form  prescribed  by  law." 
—  Ibid. 


440 

And,  as  if  these  definitions  were  not  clear  enough, 
the  learned  judge  adds,  — 

"  Cases  arising  under  the  laws  of  the  United  States  are 
such  as  grow  out  of  the  legislation  of  Congress,  within  the 
scope  of  their  constitutional  authority,  whether  they  constitute 
the  right,  or  privilege,  or  claim,  or  protection,  or  defence  of 
the  party,  in  whole  or  in  part,  by  whom  they  are  asserted." — 
3  Comm.  508. 

It  seems  clear,  then,  that  the  proceedings  authorized 
by  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  cannot  be  taken  out  of  the 
meaning  of  the  word  ''cases,"  (cases  in  law  and  equi 
ty,)  in  the  third  article. 

There  is  another  clause  in  the  third  article,  which 
embraces  these  proceedings  with  equal  clearness  and 
certainty.  "  The  judicial  power  shall  extend  to  con 
troversies  "  "  between  a  state  and  citizens  of  another 
state."  I  suppose  it  will  not  be  denied  that  a  slave 
state  may  itself  own  slaves.  They  may  escheat  to  it, 
be  taken  in  execution  for  debt,  &c.  Now,  a -free  citi 
zen  of  Massachusetts  may  enter  the  port  of  Charleston 
as  a  mariner,  be  seized,  imprisoned,  and  then  sold  into 
slavery  for  non-payment  of  jail  fees.  The  State  of 
South  Carolina  may  purchase  him.  He  may  escape 
and  return  to  Massachusetts.  South  Carolina  may 
then  claim  him  under  this  Fugitive  Slave  law. 

In  such  a  condition  of  things,  a  "controversy  "  will 
exist  between  "a  state  and  a  citizen  of  another  state." 
The  commissioner  can  take  jurisdiction  of  that  case  as 
well  as  of  any  other.  And  who  will  be  bold  enough 
to  say  that  a  trial  and  judgment  by  him,  delivering  up 
the  respondent  to  bondage,  would  not  be  the  exercise 
of  " judicial  power"  in  a  controversy  between  "a  state 
and  a  citizen  of  another  state  "  ? 

The  argument,  that  if  the  commissioner  under  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law  exercises  "judicial  power,"  then 
masters  in  chancery,  commissioners  of  bankruptcy, 
&c.,  exercise  it,  is  answered  by  a  word. 


\  ii 

Masters  in  chancery  assist  (he  court  in  preparing 
questions  for  decision,  but  they  decide  nothing.  Every 
act  of  theirs  may  be  reheard  and  reexamined  by  the 
court  at  the  pleasure  of  either  party.  They  enter  up 
no  judgment ;  they  issue  no  execution.  They  may 
express  the  opinion  that  the  plaintiff  or  defendant  is 
entitled  to  recover  a  certain  sum  of  money,  or  to  hold 
the  chattel  in  dispute  ;  but  neither  of  them  can  touch 
it.  They  are  "judges  "  in  no  legitimate  sense.  They 
exercise  no  part  of  the  "judicial  power."  The  court 
may  call  upon  them  to  state  an  account  between  par 
ties,  as  it  calls  upon  a  clerk  to  make  up  the  record,  or 
a  servitor  to  bring  a  law  book,  or  asks  a  friend  to  cast 
up  the  interest  on  a  promissory  note.  Such  are  the 
functions  of  a  master  in  chancery,  whose  acts  have  no 
legal  validity  until  assented  to  by  the  parties  or  sanc 
tioned  by  the  court. 

So  with  regard  to  commissioners  of  bankruptcy. 
Every  act  they  were  ever  authorized  to  perform  de 
rived  all  its  legal  force  from  the  consent  of  the  parties, 
or  from  the  verdict  of  a  jury,  before  whom  it  had  been 
contested,  or  from  the  judgment  of  the  court,  —  as 
may  be  seen  at  a  glance,  by  reference  to  the  acts  cre 
ating  them. 

As  to  the  supposed  "judicial  power"  exercised  by 
commissioners,  under  a  treaty  to  determine  who  are 
rightful  claimants,  and  to  how  much  each  one  is  enti 
tled,  it  is  almost  too  obvious  to  remark,  that  as  no 
citizen  can  bring  "suit"  against  the  government,  the 
"judicial  power"  does  not  "extend"  to  such  a  case, 
and  the  suggestion  is  puerile. 

A  word  more  will  close  my  remarks  on  this  topic. 
We  have  seen  that  a  decision  of  the  commissioner  ad 
verse  to  the  respondent  delivers  him  over  into  abso 
lute,  unconditional  slavery.  But  the  prevalent  opinion 
is,  that  a  decision  in  the  respondent's  favor  is  no  bar 
to  a  subsequent  trial  of  the  same  person  on  a  new 


442 

"  claim."  It  was  actually  held  in  Long's  case,  in  New 
York,  where  the  claimant  apprehended  that  the  de 
cision  of  the  first  commissioner  would  be  against  him, 
that  he  might  abandon  proceedings  before  that  tribunal 
and  resort  to  another.  He  did  so,  and  prevailed.  That 
is,  the  claimant  may  select,  from  among  an  indefinite 
number  of  irresponsible  magistrates,  the  one  whose 
ignorance  or  whose  turpitude  may  promise  the  best 
chances  of  success.  But  if,  from  any  cause,  he  should 
apprehend  defeat,  then,  and  before  the  final  judgment 
is  pronounced,  he  can  withdraw  his  suit  and  com 
mence  anew  before  another  magistrate,  and  so  throw 
the  dice  of  the  law  again  and  again,  until,  by  the  very 
doctrine  of  chances,  he  shall  ultimately  succeed.  Such 
want  of  equity  between  the  parties  stamps  this  law  as 
infamous,  —  for  inequity  is  iniquity. 

An  argument  in  favor  of  the  surrender  of  alleged 
fugitives  from  service  under  this  law  has  been  derived 
from  the  provision  for  the  surrender  of  fugitives  from 
justice.  But  the  difference  between  the  cases  is  world 
wide.  In  regard  to  slaves,  the  constitution  says,  — 
"No  person  HELD  to  service,"  &c.  ;  but  in  regard  to 
criminals,  its  language  is,  "  A  person  CHARGED,"  &c. 

Now,  who  can  avoid  perceiving  the  difference  be 
tween  the  legal  force  of  the  words  "  held "  and 
"charged"?  The  obligor  in  a  bond  is  "HELD  and 
firmly  bound."  The  grantor  conveys  an  estate  "  to 
have  and  to  HOLD  "  to  the  grantee  and  his  heirs  and 
assigns  forever.  So  a  lessee  is  to  "  HOLD  "  for  the 
term  specified.  A  man  is  HELD  to  answer  a  charge, 
&c.,  &c.  In  all  these  cases  the  word  "  hold  "  implies 
a  perfect  obligation  or  certain  liability.  But  a  man  is 
"  CHARGED  "  with  an  offence  when  a  grand  jury  has 
found  an  indictment  against  him,  or  when  a  competent 
person  has  made  the  requisite  oath.  It  is  not  enough 
that  a  man  be  charged  to  be  held  to  service.  He  must 
be  proved  to  be  held,  or  he  remains  free ;  the  court 


443 

must  know  that  he  is  so  /ir-ltl  before  they  are  author 
ized  to  surrender  him.  And  how,  under  our  constitu 
tion,  can  the  court  know  such  facts  as  convert  a  pre 
sumptive  freeman  into  a  slave  without  a  trial  by  jury? 

Had  the  constitution  said  a  fugitive  guilty  of  mur 
der,  &c.,  shall  be  delivered  up,  could  a  man  be  deliv 
ered  up  until  proved  guilty  of  murder  ?  Yet  the  word 
guilty  is  no  stronger  in  reference  to  a  fugitive  from  jus 
tice  than  is  the  word  held  in  reference  to  a  fugitive 
from  service. 

Another  distinction  between  the  cases  is  not  less 
marked  than  the  preceding.  When  the  fugitive  from 
justice  is  claimed,  he  is  claimed  by  a  state  for  having 
violated  its  law,  and  when  he  is  delivered  up  he  is  de 
livered  into  the  custody  of  the  law.  Legal  process 
must  have  been  commenced  against  him  in  the  state 
from  which  he  fled.  He  is  returned,  that  the  prosecu 
tion  thus  commenced  may  be  completed.  He  is  de 
livered  from  an  officer  of  the  law  in  one  state  to  the 
officer  of  the  law  in  another  state.  He  is  transferred, 
not  to  avoid  a  trial,  but  to  have  one.  The  original  in 
dictment  or  charge,  the  arrest  in  a  foreign  state,  and 
the  delivery  and  transportation  to  the  place  of  trial,  are 
but  separate  parts  of  one  legal  proceeding.  The  shield 
of  the  law  is  continued  over  him.  All  the  time  and  all 
the  way,  he  has  the  solemn  pledge  of  the  government, 
that  if  not  found  guilty  on  the  prosecution  then  pend 
ing,  he  shall  be  discharged. 

But  the  alleged  slave  is  claimed  not  by  a  state,  but 
by  an  individual,  and  he  is  delivered  up,  not  into  the 
custody  of  the  law,  where  his  right  might  be  adjudi 
cated  upon,  but  into  private  hands  ;  not  into  the  hands 
of  a  neutral  or  indifferent  person  even,  but  into  the 
hands  of  a  party  interested  to  deprive  him  of  all  his 
rights,  and  who  himself  claims  to  be  judge,  jury,  and 
all  the  witnesses,  in  determining  what  those  rights  are. 
If  he  be  not  a  slave,  then  he  is  delivered  into  the 


444 

hands  of  a  man-stealer.  The  shield  of  the  law  is  not 
continued  over  him;  nay,  the  Fugitive  Slave  act  ex 
pressly  provides  that,  whatever  his  rights  may  be,  yet, 
while  in  transit ut  the  law  shall  not  recognize  them. 
The  certificate  given  by  the  commissioner  to  the  claim 
ant  is  to  prevent  "all  molestation  of  him  by  any  pro 
cess  issued  by  the  court,  judge,  magistrate,  or  other 
person  whomsoever."  Under  this  practical  interpreta 
tion  of  our  constitution,  which,  as  its  own  preamble 
declares,  was  formed  to  "  establish  justice,  and  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty,"  it  takes  better  care  of  felons 
than  of  freemen. 

But  there  are  other  provisions  of  the  constitution 
respecting  the  trial  of  criminals,  which  would  control 
this  provision  respecting  the  delivery  of  fugitives  from 
justice,  even  if  there  should  be  any  doubts  about  its 
true  construction.  By  the  constitution  as  orginally 
adopted,  and  by  the  fifth  amendment,  all  crimes,  (ex 
cept  in  cases  of  impeachment,  or  in  the  land  and  naval 
forces,)  are  to  be  tried  in  the  state  and  district  where 
committed.  This  makes  it  impossible  to  try  a  fugitive 
from  justice  in  the  state  to  which  he  has  fled.  It  is  an 
express  prohibition  against  trying  him  there.  But  no 
such  prohibition  exists,  no  analogous  provision  exists, 
respecting  the  trial  of  "  suits  at  common  law,"  or  the 
trial  of  "  cases  "  or  "  co'ntroversies,"  in  which  a  man 
may  be  deprived  of  "  life,  liberty,  or  property." 
These  cases,  therefore,  not  being  taken  out  of  the 
general  provisipns  of  the  constitution  for  securing  the 
rights  of  the  citizen,  are  left  within  it,  and  hence  must 
be  tried  by  a  jury  in  the  place  where  the  claim  is  made. 

My  next  objection  to  this  law  is,  that  it  attempts  to 
suspend  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus. 

The  constitution  says,  "  The  privilege  of  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  shall  not  be  suspended,  unless  when,  in 
cases  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  the  public  safety  may 
require  it."  The  Fugitive  Slave  law  declares  that  the 


"  certificate  "  given  to  the  claimant,  his  agent  or  attor 
ney,  "  shall  prevent  all  molestation  of  said  person  or 
persons  by  any  process  issued  by  any  court,  judge, 
magistrate,  or  other  person  whomsoever."  Now,  as  a 
writ  of  habeas  corpus  is  a  "  process  issued  by  a  court 
or  judge,"  it  follows,  that,  according  to  the  terms  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law,  the  slave  owner  is  not  to  be  "  mo 
lested"  by  that  process.  What,  then,  will  constitute  a 
11  molestation  "  of  him  under  this  law  ?  Would  the 
service  of  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus  upon  him,  and,  in 
case  of  his  refusal  voluntarily  to  obey  it,  the  seizure 
of  his  person,  and  the  carrying  of  him  bodily  before 
the  court,  perhaps  a  hundred  miles  out  of  his  way  ;  — 
would  the  moral  necessity  of  employing  counsel,  and 
being  otherwise  subjected  to  great  expense,  both  of 
money  and  time  ;  —  would  any  or  all  of  these  impedi 
ments  and  privations  amount  to  what  this  law  denom 
inates  "  molestation  "  ?  If  they  would,  then  the  slave 
owner  is  exempted  from  them.  And  if  so  exempted 
from  them,  is  not  the  privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus  "suspended,"  as  to  his  pretended  slave?  Wrhat 
jelse  can  a  "  suspension  "  of  it  mean  ? 

But  take  the  other  alternative.  Suppose  the  writ 
of  habeas  corpus  to  be  issued,  and  a  return  of  all  the 
facts  by  which  the  supposed  slave  is  held  to  be  made. 
The  very  return  brings  the  Fugitive  Slave  act  before  the 
court  ;  and  if  the  act  is  before  the  court,  then,  surely, 
the  question  is  also  before  the  court,  whether  it  is  con 
stitutional  or  not.  For,  if  unconstitutional,  it  is  no 
law,  and  no  justification  of  the  restraint.  Suppose  the 
court  to  decide  the  act  to  be  unconstitutional,  and  to 
discharge  the  prisoner.  This  surely  would  be  a  "mo 
lestation  "  of  him,  in  the  strongest  sense  of  the  word. 
To  say  the  least  of  it,  then,  the  law  contains  an  inso 
lent  and  audacious  provision,  forbidding  the  "  courts, 
judges,  magistrates,  and  all  other  persons  whomso 
ever,"  to  do  what  it  may  be  their  sworn  constitutional 
38 


446 

duty  to  do,  —  that  is,  to  inquire  into  the  constitution 
ality  of  the  law,  and,  if  found  to  be  unconstitutional, 
to  disregard  it. 

I  am  aware  of  the  astute  reasoning  of  the  present 
able  attorney-general  of  the  United  States.  He  says, 
first,  that,  the  act  does  not  suspend  the  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  because  such  suspension  would  be  "  a  plain 
and  palpable  violation  of  the  constitution,  and  no  in 
tention  to  commit  such  a  violation  of  the  constitution 
ought  to  be  imputed"  to  Congress  ;  and  second,  that  if 
the  certificate  of  the  commissioner  is  shown  "  upon  the 
application  of  the  fugitive  for  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus, 
it  prevents  the  issuing  of  the  writ ;  if  upon  the  return, 
it  discharges  the  writ,  and  restores  or  maintains  the 
custody." 

The  first  reason  might  be  more  briefly  stated  thus  : 
it  don't  because  it  don't  ;  or  it  don't  because  it  can't. 

The  second  is  as  little  satisfactory  as  the  first.  If  the 
facts  are  shown,  it  says,  upon  the  fugitive's  applica 
tion  for  a  writ,  no  writ  will  issue  ;  if  shown  upon  the 
return  of  the  writ,  it  will  be  abated.  Is  it  not  most 
clear  that  this  assumes  the  very  question  in  dispute, 
whether  the  law  on  which  the  certificate  is  founded  be 
constitutional  or  not  ?  The  statement  may  be  all  very 
true,  if  the  law  be  constitutional  ;  but  suppose  the  law 
to  be  unconstitutional,  would  not  the  statement  be  su 
perlatively  absurd  ?  Yet  whether  the  law  be  constitu 
tional  or  not,  is  the  very  question  to  be  determined. 

Let  me  test  the  soundness  of  this  logic  by  a  supposed 
case.  There  is,  at  the  present  time,  a  set  of  politicians 
amongst  us,  who  are  so  alarmed  at  agitation  that  each 
one  of  them  is  a  kind  of  Peter  the  Hermit,  getting  up 
a  crusade  to  prevent  it.  Now,  suppose  Congress,  "  as 
a  peace  measure,"  should  pass  a  law  authorizing  the 
secretary  of  state  to  issue  his  warrant  for  the  arrest  and 
imprisonment,  until  the  4th  day  of  March,  1853,  or  at 
least  until  after  the  next  presidential  nominations  are 


44? 

made,  of  any  person  who  shall  be  guilty  of  agitating 
on  the  wrong-  side  of  said  peace  measure,  and  sin  mid 
further  declare  that  any  jailer  having  such  warrant  from 
said  secretary  should  be  free  from  "  all  molestation  by 
any  process  issued  by  any  court,  magistrate,  or  other 
person  whomsoever."  Would  it  be  a  sound,  judicial, 
and  lawyer-like  argument,  in  such  a  case,  to  say  that 
Congress  could  not,  and  could  not  have  intended  to, 
violate  the  constitution,  and  therefore  they  had  not 
violated  it ;  and  that  if  the  warrant  for  commitment 
should  appear  upon  the  prisoner's  application  for  a  writ 
of  habeas  corpus,  it  would  prevent  its  issuing  ;  if,  upon 
its  return,  it  would  discharge  it  ? 

I  think  it  impossible  for  any  one  to  show  that  if  the 
argument  be  good  in  the  first  case,  it  would  not  be 
good  in  the  second;  and  good,  indeed,  in  any  case, 
however  outrageously  violating  the  constitution. 

Again  :  suppose  the  18th  of  September  last,  when 
the  Fugitive  Slave  bill  was  approved,  to  have  been  a 
time  "  of  rebellion  or  invasion,"  when  the  public  safety 
required  the  suspension  of  this  writ,  would  not  such 
words  as  end  the  sixth  section  of  the  act  be  sufficient 
in  law  to  suspend  it  ?  The  attorney-general  seems  to 
rely  upon  the  fact  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  does  not 
mention  the  habeas  corpus.  He  cannot  surely  mean 
to  say  that  the  privilege  of  this  writ  could  not  be  sus 
pended,  unless  by  name.  Even  slavery  is  not  men 
tioned  in  the  constitution  by  name.  Suppose  Congress, 
in  a  time  of  rebellion  or  invasion,  to  say,  in  regard  to 
any  class  of  cases  which  it  might  choose  to  specify, 
that  if  one  person  shall  hold  another  under  executive 
warrant,  such  warrant  "  shall  prevent  all  molestation 
of  said  person  or  persons  by  any  process  issued  by  any 
court,  judge,  magistrate,  or  other  person  whomsoever  ;  " 
could  any  man  deny  that  such  words  would  have  ample 
force  to  suspend  the  privilege  of  this  sacred  and  time- 
hallowed  writ  ? 


448 

No!  Heaven,  and  not  the  thirty-first  Congress,  be 
praised  for  it !  Though  this  infamous  Fugitive  law 
could  not  suspend  the  habeas  corpus,  yet  its  words  are 
adequate  to  do  so.  They  purport  to  put  the  profes 
sional  slave-hunter,  as  it  regards  the  privilege  from  arrest, 
or  "  molestation,"  on  the  footing  of  a  member  of  Con 
gress  ;  and  it  would  not  have  gone  one  iota  further,  in 
point  of  principle,  had  they  made  his  person  inviolable 
while  going  to  seize  his  prey,  and  when  returning 
with  it. 

If  the  argument  of  the  attorney-general  be  sound, 
then  the  whole  "privilege  of  the  writ  of  habeas  cor 
pus"  under  any  corrupt  law  that  any  corrupt  Congress 
may  pass,  will  consist  in  the  privilege  of  applying  to  a 
court  for  the  writ,  and  being  refused  ;  or  in  suing  out 
the  writ,  and  having  it  quashed. 

By  the  principles  of  the  English  law,  the  privilege 
of  the  habeas  corpus  attaches  to  all,  whether  bond  or 
free.  The  words  liber  homo,  says  Lord  Coke,  extend 
to  every  one  of  the  king's  subjects,  "  be  he  ecclesias 
tical  or  temporal,  free  or  bond,  man  or  woman,  old  or 
young,  or  be  he  outlawed,  excommunicated,  or  any 
other,  without  exception."  —  2  Inst.  55. 

I  now  proceed  to  lay  open  for  the  abhorrence  of 
mankind  other  deformities  of  this  most  odious  law.  In 
opposing  a  law,  a  distinction  is  to  be  made  between 
the  courts  and  the  people  ;  between  the  bench  and  the 
ballot-box.  The  courts  can  hear  but  one  objection  to 
a  law.  It  may  be  impolitic,  unrighteous,  atrocious  ; 
but  if  it  be  constitutional  they  must  sustain  it.  But 
before  the  tribunal  of  the  people,  a  law  may  be  im 
peached  for  any  attribute  of  cruelty,  oppression,  or 
meanness.  I  denounce  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  for  all 
these  qualities.  In  its  scornful  rejection  of  all  those 
common-law  principles  of  evidence  which  have  been 
ratified  by  the  wisdom  of  ages ;  in  the  "  summary  " 
and  piratical  haste  of  its  proceedings,  and  in  the  indel- 


449 

ible  blood  with  which  its  judgments  are  recorded,  I 
believe  it  has  not  a  parallel  in  the  modern  code  of  any 
civilized  people. 

Should  the  courts,  hampered  by  previous  decisions, 
and  habituated  to  the  spectacle  and  the  support  of  a 
cruel  institution,  pronounce  this  law  to  be  constitu 
tional,  such  a  judgment  would  give  new  force  to  every 
reason  why  the  people  should  demand  its  modification 
or  repeal.  It  is  not  enough  that  it  should  be  declared 
void  by  the  courts  as  against  the  fundamental  law  of 
the  land  ;  it  deserves  to  be  branded  by  the  people  as 
abhorrent  to  humanity,  to  civilization,  and  to  the  gos 
pel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Look  at  its  provisions  in  regard  to  evidence.  The 
proof  of  three  facts  dooms  the  victim  :  first,  that  the 
person  named  in  the  warrant  owes  the  claimant  service  ; 
second,  that  he  has  escaped ;  and,  third,  identity. 

Now,  according  to  the  law,  all  these  facts  may  be 
proved  in  the  absence  of  the  party  to  be  ruined  by 
them.  The  whole  case  may  be  established  by  evi 
dence  taken  behind  the  victim's  back,  without  notice 
to  him,  without  knowledge,  or  possibility  of  knowledge, 
on  his  part.  A  freeman  may  be  suddenly  arrested,  and 
dragged  into  court,  and  on  certain  papers  being  read 
against  him,  which  he  never  saw  nor  heard  of  before, 
he  may  be  ordered  into  the  custody  of  officers,  and 
hurried  to  a  returnless  distance  from  wife,  children,  and 
friends,  reduced  to  the  direst  form  of  bondage  the  world 
ever  knew,  and  at  the  expense  of  the  very  government 
which  he  has  been  taxed  to  support,  and  which  in  turn 
was  bound  to  protect  him.  I  will  prove  by  a  reference 
to  the  act  itself  that  these  atrocities  are  among  its  con 
spicuous  features. 

By  the  sixth  section    it    is  made    the  duty  of  the 

"  court,  judge,  or  commissioner,"   "  upon  satisfactory 

proof  being  made  by  deposition  or  affidavit,  in  writing," 

"  or  by  other  satisfactory  testimony,"  "  and  with  proof, 

38* 


450 

also  by  affidavit,  of  the  identity  of  the  person  whose 
service  or  labor  is  claimed,"  "to  make  out  and  deliver 
to  such  claimant  a  certificate,"  &c. 

And  the  tenth  section  of  the  act  declares  that  the 
transcript  of  a  record  "  taken  in  any  state  or  territory, 
or  in  the  District  of  Columbia,"  and  "  produced  in  any 
other  state,  territory,  or  district,"  and  being  there 
"  exhibited  to  any  judge,  commissioner,  or  other  officer 
authorized  to  cause  persons  escaping  from  service  or 
labor  to  be  delivered  up,  shall  be  held  and  taken  to  be 
full  and  conclusive  evidence  of  the  fact  of  escape,  and 
that  the  service  or  labor  of  the  person  escaping  is  due 
to  the  party  in  said  record  mentioned."  "  And  upon 
the  production  of  other  and  further  evidence,  if  neces 
sary,  either  oral  or  by  affidavit,  of  the  identity  of  the 
person  escaping,  he  or  she  shall  be  delivered  up  to  the 
claimant." 

Here,  then,  is  a  provision  unknown  to  the  common 
law  of  England,  or  to  any  colony,  or  people,  or  tribe 
that  ever  claimed  the  common  law  of  England  as  their 
inheritance  ;  unknown  even  to  the  star  chamber,  or 
high  commission  court  ;  unknown  in  the  bloodiest, 
reigns  of  the  bloodiest  tyrants  that  ever  sat  upon  the 
English  throne  :  unknown  to  those  judicial  villains 
whom  Lord  Campbell  calls  "ruffians  in  ermine1'1  —  in 
corporated  into  the  code  of  a  republican  government. 
Evidence,  which  may  consign  to  slavery  a  man  who  is 
ostensibly  and  presumptively  free,  —  free  by  the  laws 
of  the  state  where  he  is,  and  free  every  where  by  the 
law  of  God  and  humanity, — may  be  prepared  in  his 
absence,  without  any  notice  to  him,  and  by  any  means 
of  perjury  or  subornation  of  perjury  to  which  guilt  may 
resort,  and  this  evidence  is  made  legally  sufficient  to 
doom  a  fellow-being  to  relentless  bondage.  Notwith 
standing  those  remarkable  clauses  in  the  constitution 
which  provide  that  "  in  all  criminal  prosecutions  the 
accused  shall  enjoy  the  right  to  a  speedy  and  public 


451 

trial,"  "  be  informed  of  the  nature  and  cause  of  the 
accusation,"  "  be  confronted  with  the  witnesses  against 
him,"  "  have  compulsory  process  for  obtaining  witnesses 
in  his  favor,"  "and  have  the  assistance  of  counsel 
for  his  defence;"  yet  Judge  Story  comments  upon 
them  in  a  spirit  of  dissatisfaction  and  sorrow;  "for," 
says  he,  "  unless  the  whole  system  [of  the  common 
law]  is  incorporated,  and  especially  the  law  of  evideii<'t>, 
a  corrupt  legislature,  or  a  debased  and  servile  people, 
may  render  the  whole  little  more  than  a  solemn 
pageantry."  (3  Com.  602.)  In  speaking  of  a  "  cor 
rupt  legislature,"  he  seems  to  describe  what  this  Con 
gress  has  done  in  enacting  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  at 
its  last  session  ;  and,  in  speaking  of  a  "  debased  and 
servile  people,"  he  speaks  of  just  such  a  people  as  the 
advocates  and  champions  of  this  law  are  now  striving 
to  make  the  people  of  the  United  States  become  ! 

The  right  of  cross  examining  witnesses  is  a  common- 
law  right,  appertaining  to  all  kinds  of  trials.  It  is  a 
right  without  which  all  trials  are  but  mockery.  It  is 
oftentimes  a  hardship  to  be  confronted  with  witnesses 
of  whom  one  knows  nothing  ;  but  to  be  debarred  from 
all  opportunity  of  getting,  by  cross  questioning,  at  the 
knowledge  that  is  in  them  ;  to  be  debarred  from  the 
right  of  showing  that  they  are  incompetent  even  to 
folly,  or  corrupt  even  to  wilful  perjury,  this  is  a  bar 
barity  unknown  to  any  code  in  the  civilized  world, 
save  to  the  code  of  the  United  States  of  America.  It 
is  what  even  barbarians  might  be  ashamed  of.  It  is 
offering  bounties  and  premiums  on  villany,  and  turning 
the  courts  into  brokers'  offices  for  perjury.  Under 
such  a  law,  is  there  a  single  colored  person  at  the  north 
who  can  rise  to  his  labor  in  the  morning,  or  lie  down 
to  his  repose  at  night,  with  any  feeling  of  security  that 
avarice  and  false  swearing  may  not  then  be  at  work 
for  his  destruction  ?  Who  can  wonder,  if  he  is  tor 
mented  in  his  nightly  dreams  by  images  of  the  man- 


452 

stealer,  in  far  off  regions,  plotting  for  his  ruin  ?  Who 
can  wonder  if,  in  his  city  residence,  he  starts  as  he 
turns  the  corner  of  every  street  ;  or,  in  his  rural  home, 
if  he  shudders  at  the  rustle  of  every  leaf,  lest  some 
kidnapper  should  spring  from  his  ambush  to  seize 
him  ?  That  sense  of  personal  security  which  every 
honest  man  is  entitled  to  feel,  this  law  abolishes.  The 
virtuous  man  cannot  rely  upon  his  government,  nor  the 
pious  man  upon  his  God,  for  earthly  protection.  For 
him  the  Prince  of  Darkness  has  obtained,  the  ascendency 
in  the  affairs  of  men,  and  offers  impunity  to  guilt, 
while  protection  is  withdrawn  from  innocence.  The 
life  of  such  a  man  is  a  perpetual  agony  of  alarm  for 
himself  and  for  his  family.  A  cloud  charged  with 
lightning  is  forever  suspended  over  his  head,  and  no 
genius  can  devise  the  means  to  turn  aside  its  bolts. 

Sir,  before  God,  I  believe  that,  in  the  judgment  of  an 
impartial  posterity,  this  method  of  taking  evidence,  by 
the  cruellest  of  means  and  for  the  wickedest  of  pur 
poses,  will  be  held  as  atrocious  and  as  execrable  as  that 
horrid  method  of  extracting  evidence  by  torture,  which 
once  prevailed,  but  which  now  even  half-civilized  na 
tions  have  abolished.  A  brave  heart  could  withhold  a 
false  confession,  even  upon  the  rack.  With  the 
images  of  wife  and  children  before  the  eyes,  martyr 
dom  for  their  protection  has  been  sweet.  But  there  is 
no  man  whom  God  ever  made  who  will  not  tremble, 
and  stand  aghast  with  consternation,  with  the  con 
scious  knowledge  in  his  mind  that  he,  his  wife  and 
children,  and  all  that  he  holds  dear  upon  earth,  are  at 
the  mercy  of  every  pirate-hearted  villain  between  the 
Atlantic  and  the  Rio  Grande ;  nay,  that  the  govern 
ment  offers  inducement  to  foreign  assassins  to  come 
here,  where,  with  less  risk,  they  can  make  more  money 
by  false  swearing  and  judicial  kidnapping  than  they 
could  at  home  by  murder  and  robbery.  Better,  a 
thousand  times  better,  had  the  constitution  allowed  the 


[53 

citizen  "  to  be  compelled  to  be  a  witness  against  him 
self,"  and  laid  its  prohibitions  upon  the  fabrication  of 
testimony  against  him  in  his  absence. 

The  tenth  section  of  the  act.  declares  that  this  evi 
dence,  thus  obtained  under  a  foreign  jurisdiction  and 
in  the  absence  of  the  party,  shall  be  "  conclusive." 
Now,  the  legal  force  and  meaning  of  this  provision  is, 
that  no  amount  or  weight  of  evidence,  no  array  of  the 
most  unimpeachable  witnesses,  not  even  the  personal 
knowledge  of  the  commissioner  himself,  who  tries  the 
case,  though  given  under  the  sanction  of  an  oath, 
which  the  law  does  not  require  him,  as  a  commissioner, 
to  take,  shall  he  admissible  to  rebut  this  "conclusive  " 
testimony.  It  is  not  made  prima  facie  evidence  merely 
iuainst  the  respondent  ;  it  does  not  merely  shift  the 
burden  of  proof,  so  that  the  presumptive  freeman  be- 
rumes  presumptively  a  slave,  and  must  himself  estab 
lish  the  freedom  he  would  possess;  but  the  law  mag- 
nines  it  into  a  species  of  proof  that  is  "  conclusive," — 
that  is,  unquestionable,  irrefragable,  omnipotent,  —  like 
u  miracle  of  God,  not  to  be  disputed.  And  this  great 
est  of  legal  force  is  given  to  the  worst  kind  of  evidence. 
I  say  that  a  law  so  worthy  of  abhorrence,  so  truculent, 
,so  fiendish,  is  not  to  be  found  upon  the  statute  book 
of  any  other  civilized  nation  on  the  globe. 

Such,  too,  has  been  the  practical  construction  given 
to  the  law.  I  see  by  the  papers  that,  in  a  late  case 
which  occurred  at  Detroit,  the  respondent  declared 
himself  a  free  man,  and  prayed  for  a  continuance,  to 
allow  him  to  send  to  Cincinnati  for  his  free  papers. 
But  the  commissioner  refused  the  delay,  saying  that, 
under  this  law,  even  free  papers  from  the  very  man 
that  claimed  him  would  be  of  no  avail  ;  for  where 
tiie  law  made  the  evidence  conclusive,  nothing  could 
rebut  it.  Any  counter  evidence  must  always  be  ad 
mitted,  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  evidence  already 
received  may  be  controlled  by  it.  But  what  an  infi- 


454 

nite  absurdity  to  suppose  that  one  mass  or  body  of 
proof  can  be  conclusive,  over  another  which  is  conclu 
sive.  The  law  might  just  as  well  have  made  color 
conclusive,  not  only  that  the  respondent  was  a  slave, 
but  that  he  ran  away  from  the  man  who  claims  him. 
The  law,  as  it  stands,  is  as  much  a  slave-making  as  it 
is  a  slave-catching  law. 

It  declares  that  the  proceedings  shall  be  "  summary ;  " 
and  it  provides  a  different  rate  of  compensation,  ac 
cording  as  the  decision  is  for  freedom  or  against  it.  On 
what  principle  is  this  difference  of  compensation 
founded  ?  Every  body  can  see  at  a  glance  that  when 
a  claimant  can  prepare  his  evidence  beforehand  and  in 
secret,  he  would  be  a  fool  not  to  make  out  a  prima 
facie  case.  If  the  respondent  adduces  no  proof,  the 
case  goes  by  default,  and  judgment,  without  delay,  is 
entered  against  him.  But  if  the  claim  is  contested, 
then  witnesses  are  to  be  examined,  arguments  are  to 
be  heard,  evidence  is  to  be  weighed,  legal  questions  to 
be  investigated,  and  such  a  decision  made  as  the  com 
missioner  is  willing  to  pronounce  before  the  world.  It 
is  only  in  the  last  class  of  cases,  the  contested  class, 
that  the  respondent  will  be  discharged.  The  cases, 
therefore,  that  result  in  freedom  will  ordinarily  occu 
py  sixfold  or  tenfold  more  time,  besides  requiring  the 
exercise  of  more  legal  knowledge  and  ability,  than 
those  which  terminate  fatally  to  the  respondent.  Yet 
for  decreeing  the  freedom  of  a  man,  the  fee  is  but 
half  as  much  as  when  a  sentence  of  bondage  is 
awarded  against  him.  This  surpasses  the  bribery  of 
Judas  by  the  high  priests.  They  had  not  diabolical 
wit  enough  to  present  a  contrast  between  right  and 
wrong,  as  a  special  stimulus  for  committing  iniquity. 

The  "  summary  manner  ?'  of  trial  provided  for  by 
this  law,  when  considered  in  reference  to  rights  so 
momentous,  shocks  every  Anglo-Saxon  mind.  One's 
blood  must  all  be  corrupted  in  his  veins,  before  he  can 


455 

hear  of  it  without  indignation.  It  is  the  noblest  attri 
bute  of  our  race,  that  we  hold  civil  and  religious  liberty 
to  be  more  sacred  and  more  precious  than  life  itself. 
Yet  by  what  safeguards  of  constitution,  of  law,  and 
of  forms  of  practice,  is  life  protected  amongst  us? 
There  must  be  a  presentment,  by  at  least  twelve  sworn 
men,  before  a  man  can  be  held  to  answer  to  a  charge 
by  which  it  can  be  forfeited.  Then  come  the  trav 
erse  jury,  the  right  of  peremptory  challenge,  the 
assignment  of  counsel,  the  right  to  see  the  indictment 
beforehand,  and  to  know  the  names  of  witnesses  who 
are  to  be  called  against  the  accused,  and  compulsory 
process  to  insure  the  attendance  of  witnesses  in  his 
favor !  What  noble  barriers  are  these  against  the 
oppression  of  a  powerful  government,  and  the  malig 
nant  passions  of  powerful  men  !  The  probable  culprit, 

—  the  man  laboring  under  the  most  violent  suspicion, 

—  though    caught   with   the   blood-red  dagger   in   his 
hand  over  the  prostrate  body  of  the  victim,  is  guarded 
by  all  that  human  ingenuity  has  been  able  to  devise  ; 
by  all  the  knowledge  that  we  can  command  this  side 
of  the  omniscience,  and  by  all  the  power  this  side  of 
the  omnipotence  of  God.     Yet  in  the  very  commu 
nity  where  these   rights  are  reverenced  and  upheld,  a 
man  may  be  seized  without  notice,  hurried  to  a  tribu 
nal  without  an  hour  for  preparation,  and  then  be  borne 
away  a  thousand  miles,  where  all  that  life  has  of  hope 
and  of  enjoyment  is  taken  away,  and  all  that  it  knows 
of  misery  and  of  terror  is  realized. 

Let  me  ask  any  man  who  ever  had  a  case  in  court 
that  was  worth  defending,  whether  he  was  prepared  to 
meet  it  the  first  hour  he  had  notice  of  its  existence  ? 
A  respondent's  witnesses  may  be  resident  in  different 
states,  and  distances  of  hundreds  of  miles  may  inter 
vene  between  him  and  them.  His  proof  may  consist 
of  deeds,  or  wills,  or  records,  which  cannot  be  found 
or  authenticated  without  delay.  His  defence  may 


456 

consist  of  matters  of  law,  which  the  ablest  counsel 
may  require  time  and  the  examination  of  books  to  in 
vestigate.  All  these  obstacles  to  instantaneous  readi 
ness  may  exist  together,  and  yet  the  inexorable  man 
date  of  the  law  scorns  his  appeal  for  that  delay  on 
which  his  highest  interests  are  suspended,  and  dooms 
him  to  bondage  because  he  cannot  achieve  impossibil 
ities.  Under  such  a  law,  not  one  man  in  ten  who  will 
be  arrested,  even  though  he  should  be  free,  will  be 
prepared  to  establish  his  freedom.  A  great  portion  of 
these  outcasts  from  human  justice,  I  doubt  not,  are 
better  prepared  for  the  summons  of  instantaneous 
death  than  for  this  summons  of  instantaneous  trial. 

Then  the  cruel  haste  in  executing  judgment !  The 
murderer  is  allowed  a  season  of  respite  between  the 
hour  of  sentence  and  the  hour  of  death  ;  the  debtor 
may  turn  out  goods  to  satisfy  a  creditor's  demands  ; 
but  the  alleged  fugitive  has  no  reprieve.  He  has  no 
opportunity  to  solicit  money  to  redeem  himself,  or  to 
negotiate  for  the  ransom  of  body  and  soul.  Swift  and 
sure  as  an  arrow  to  its  mark,  he  is  speeded  on  his  way 
to  the  abodes  of  toil  and  despair.  The  witnesses  who 
swore  away  his  liberty  may  have  been  perjured,  but  he 
cannot  stop  to  convict  them.  The  court  may  have 
been  corrupt,  but  he  cannot  remain  to  impeach  it. 
However  honestly  rendered,  the  judgment  may  be  re 
versible  for  error  in  law,  but  he  cannot  stay  to  set  it 
aside. 

Now,  every  one  must  see  that  where  there  is  so  little 
caution  before  trial,  there  should  be  a  liberal  opportu 
nity  for  revision  after  it.  But  here  is  infinite  exposure 
to  error  with  no  chance  for  rectification.  Overstep 
ping  the  acts  of  the  common  tyrant,  there  is  an  inflic 
tion  of  the  most  heinous  wrong,  with  a  premeditated 
purpose  that  it  shall  not  be  repaired.  The  great  and 
free  republic  of  North  America  has  transferred  the 
unwritten  law  of  Judge  Lynch  to  its  statute  book. 


457 

However  clear  the  constitutional  obligation  of  Con 
gress  to  enact  a  law  for  the  reclamation  of  fugitive 
slaves  may  be  supposed  by  any  one  to  be,  there  cer 
tainly  are  limitations  to  this  obligation,  which  all  the 
principles  of  our  government  forbid  the  law-maker  to 
transcend. 

In  the  first  place,  this  constitutional  obligation  must 
be  strictly  construed.  The  main  and  primary  ob 
ject  of  the  constitution  was  to  protect  natural  rights  ; 
but  the  object  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  clause  was  to 
protect  a  legal  right  in  conflict  with  natural  right.  All 
judges  of  an  honorable  name,  all  courts  in  all  civilized 
communities,  have  recognized  a  broad  distinction  in 
the  principles  of  interpreting  law.  They  have  held 
that  provisions  against  life  and  liberty  should  be  strictly 
construed,  while  those  in  favor  of  life  and  liberty 
should  be  liberally  construed,  —  the  one  so  construed 
as  to  inflict  as  little  of  pain  and  privation  as  possible  ; 
the  other,  to  give  as  much  of  freedom  and  immunity 
as  possible.  These  have  become  maxims,  or  axioms, 
of  legal  interpretation  ;  and  in  their  long  and  unbroken 
recognition,  it  is  not  too  strong  an  expression  to  say, 
they  impetrate  and  command  a  strict  construction  of 
that  clause  in  the  constitution  under  which  fugitives 
may  be  claimed.  And  the  same  legal  maxims,  in 
regard  to  all  subjects  touching  life  and  liberty,  bind 
Congress  in  legislating  under  the  constitution,  as  bind 
the  judicial  tribunals  in  administering  the  law. 

Yet  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  contains  provisions 
which  there  can  be  no  pretence  nor  shadow  of  a  pre 
tence  that  the  constitution  requires.  By  the  constitu 
tion,  "  No  person  held  to  service  or  labor  in  one  state, 
escaping  into  another,  shall  be  discharged."  Into 
another  what  ?  Indisputably,  into  another  state.  It 
must  mean  state,  and  can  mean  nothing  else  ;  for  the 
laws  of  language  admit  no  other  construction.  The 
expression,  "  No  person  held  in  one  state,  escaping 
39 


458 

into  another  TERRITORY,"  would  be  not  merely  un- 
grammatical  and  un-English,  but  nonsensical.  No 
man  of  common  intelligence  ever  so  construed  a  sen 
tence.  Yet  the  sixth  section  of  the  act  provides  not 
only  for  the  case  of  slaves  escaping  from  one  state  into 
another  state,  but  for  their  escape  from  a  state  into  a 
territory,  and  for  an  escape  from  a  territory  into  a 
state,  and  for  an  escape  from  one  territory  into  another 
territory.  Four  classes  of  cases  are  provided  for  by 
the  law,  while  but  one  of  them  finds  any  warrant  in 
the  constitution. 

Now  let  any  one  take  a  map  of  the  United  States, 
and  see  over  what  a  vast  area  the  law  extends,  over 
which  the  provision  in  the  constitution  does  not  ex 
tend.  The  region  is  continental  over  which  the  law  un 
constitutionally  extends,  and  this  corresponds  with  the 
vast  inhumanity  of  the  principle  which  so  extends  it. 

Mark  another  particular  in  which  the  provisions  of 
the  law  go  beyond  the  requirements  of  the  constitu 
tion.  The  constitution  says  the  fugitive  shall  be 
11  delivered  up."  The  law  makes  provision  for  trans 
porting  him  to  the  claimant's  home.  Is  there  any 
similar  provision  respecting  any  other  species  of  prop 
erty  ?  If  a  northern  merchant  recovers  a  debt  from 
his  southern  customer,  does  the  government  assume 
the  responsibility  of  seeing  that  it  is  paid  to  the  cred 
itor  at  his  own  home  ?  If  a  northern  man  is  robbed, 
and  the  stolen  goods  are  found  in  another  state,  does 
the  government  transport  them  back  and  pay  freight  ? 
Then,  why  should  government  interpose  in  this  case 
to  bear  costs  and  risks,  unless  slavery  is  so  meritorious 
an  institution  as  to  deserve  the  benefactions  as  well  as 
the  benedictions  of  freemen  ? 

Then  observe  how  artfully  the  law  is  worded,  to 
make  the  assistance  rendered  to  the  claimant  go  be 
yond  any  supposed  necessity  in  the  case.  "  If,"  it 
says,  "  upon  affidavit  made  by  the  claimant, 


459 

his  agent  or  attorney, that  he  has  reason  to 

apprehend  that  such  fugitive  will  be  rescued  by  force, 

before  he  can  take  him  beyond  the  limits  of 

the  state  in  which  the  arrest  is  made,  it  shall  be  the 

duty  of  the  officer to  remove  him  to  the  state 

whence  he  fled."  Thus,  if  danger  is  apprehended, 
iril /tiit  the  first  ten  miles,  the  government  shall  see 
the  slave  safely  home,  at  its  own  expense,  though  it 
be  a  thousand  miles. 

But  besides  the  unheard-of  principle  of  saddling 
the  government  with  the  expense  of  prosecuting  the 
private  claims  of  its  citizens  within  its  own  jurisdic 
tion,  1  should  like  to  know  what  provision  the  consti 
tution  contains,  which,  though  interpreted  by  the  most 
latitudinarian  constructionist,  confers  any  right  upon 
Congress  thus  to  take  the  money  of  one  citizen  to  pay 
the  private  expenses  of  another.  There  is  no  clause, 
or  phrase,  or  word  in  that  instrument  which  favors  the 
idea  that  the  Northern  States  should  bear  the  expense, 
as  well  as  the  disgrace,  of  thus  remanding  our  fellow- 
men  into  bondage. 

Besides,  if  the  limits  of  the  constitution  were  to  be 
transcended  in  order  to  deliver  an  alleged  fugitive  to 
his  master,  would  not  the  slightest  element  of  equity, 
or  decency,  even,  require  that  when  a  freeman  is  con 
demned  to  bondage  under  the  law,  his  expenses, 
incurred  in  returning  to  the  place  where  he  was  plun 
dered  of  himself,  should  be  reimbursed  to  him  by  the 
government  which  had  failed  in  its  duty  to  protect 
him  ?  If  the  claimant  of  James  Hamlet  could  be 
supplied  with  a  force,  at  the  government's  expense,  to 
carry  him  into  slavery,  why  should  not  the  expense 
of  coming  back  into  a  land  of  freedom  be  reimbursed 
by  the  government  to  Adam  Gibson,  after  one  of  its 
venal  and  villanous  instruments  had  wrested  that 
freedom  from  him  ? 

The  law  also  provides  for  another  thing  which  the 


460 

supreme  court  has  expressly  declared  to  be  unconstitu 
tional,  or  beyond  the  power  of  Congress  to  enact.  It 
provides  that  any  state  court  of  record,  or  judge 
thereof,  in  vacation,  may  take  and  certify  evidence 
which  shall  be  "  conclusive  "  in  regard  to  two  of  the 
three  points  which  are  made  sufficient  by  the  law  to 
prove  a  man  a  slave.  Thus,  the  two  facts  of  slavery 
and  of  escape  may  be  "conclusively"  proved  by  the 
certificate  of  a  judge  of  a  state  court,  so  that  the 
judge  before  whom  the  alleged  fugitive  is  brought 
shall,  in  regard  to  these  facts,  exercise  only  a  mere 
ministerial  function.  Now,  he  who  has  power  to  take 
and  authenticate  evidence,  which  it  is  predetermined 
shall  be  "conclusive  "  in  the  case,  has  power  to  decide 
the  case.  This,  in  its  nature  and  essence,  is  a  judicial 
power ;  yet  this  power  is  given  by  the  act  to  any  state 
court  of  record,  and  to  any  judge  thereof  in  vacation. 
Contrary  to  this,  however,  the  supreme  court  has  said, 
"  Congress  cannot  vest  any  portion  of  the  judicial 
power  of  the  United  States  except  in  courts  ordained 
and  established  by  itself."  —  Martin  vs.  Hunter's 
Lessee,  I  Wheat.  330.  "The  whole  judicial  power 
of  the  United  States  should  be,  at  all  times,  vested  in 
some  courts  created  under  its  authority."  —  Ib.  331. 
"  The  jurisdiction  over  such  cases,  [cases  arising  under 
the  constitution,  laws,  and  treaties  of  the  United 
States,]  could  not  exist  in  the  state  courts  previous 
to  the  adoption  of  the  constitution,  and  it  could  not 
afterwards  be  directly  conferred  on  them  ;  for  the 
constitution  expressly  requires  the  judicial  power  to 
be  vested  in  courts  ordained  and  established  by  the 
United  States."  —  Ib.  335. 

Yet,  though  it  is  expressly  declared  that  Congress 
cannot  vest  any  part  of  the  judicial  power  of  the 
United  States  in  a  state  court,  the  state  courts  are 
empowered  by  this  law  to  take  and  certify  evidence, 
which  is  made  "conclusive  "  in  the  case. 


461 

Look  at  the  subject  in  another  of  its  aspects.  Here 
are  some  half  million  of  free  colored  persons  in  the 
free  states.  They  are  unquestionably  free.  They 
possess,  as  fully  as  you  or  I,  those  prerogatives  of 
freedom  without  which  life  ceases  to  be  a  blessing. 
Their  freedom  is  guarantied  to  them  by  the  constitu 
tion  of  the  United  States,  and  by  the  constitutions  and 
laws  of  the  states  respectively  in  which  they  dwell. 
They  certainly  are  a  part  of  the  people.  In  some  of 
the  states,  as  in  Massachusetts  for  instance,  the  law 
knows  no  iota  of  distinction,  in  any  respect,  between 
a  black  man  and  a  white  man  ;  between  one  of  Euro 
pean  and  one  of  African  descent.  It  is  the  noble 
privilege  of  a  Massachusetts  man  to  say,  that,  as  all 
men  are  equal  before  the  divine  law,  so  are  all  men 
equal  within  our  borders,  before  the  human  law. 

Now,  scattered  among  this  half  million,  more  or 
less,  of  free  colored  people  in  the  free  states,  there  are 
a  few  hundreds,  or  a  few  thousands  if  you  please,  of 
"  fugitives  from  service  or  labor,"  as  the  constitution 
cunningly  and  evasively  phrases  it  ;  which,  being 
interpreted,  means,  as  the  whole  world  knows,  fugi 
tives  from  toil,  and  fetters,  and  stripes,  and  agony  ; 
fugitives  from  ignorance  and  the  thick  darkness  of  the 
intellect  ;  fugitives  from  moral  debasement,  and  from 
that  enforced  pollution  of  body  and  soul  that  spares 
neither  wife,  nor  mother,  nor  a  daughter's  innocence  ; 
fugitives  from  the  disruption  of  family  ties,  and  from 
the  laceration  of  all  human  affections  ;  fugitives,  in 
fine,  from  a  heathenism  of  superstition  and  religious 
blindness  into  the  glorious  light  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

Now  this  free  class  and  this  fugitive  class  belong 
ethnologically  to  the  same  race.  They  speak  the  same 
language,  and  wear  the  same  distinctive  characteristics 
of  feature  and  of  form.  All  the  unspeakable  privi 
leges,  all  the  sacred  titles  and  immunities  of  the  one 
39* 


462 

class  are  enshrined  in  the  same  complexion  and  in  the 
same  contour  of  person  that  attend  the  debasement 
and  privation  of  the  other.  The  vessels  of  honor  and 
of  glory  are  moulded  into  the  same  shape  with  the 
vessels  of  dishonor  and  of  shame. 

Now,  after  this  debased  class  has  been  created  by  a 
wicked  system  of  human  laws,  and  after  it  is  mingled 
with  the  free  class,  another  law  steps  in  and  decrees 
that  the  former  shall  be  remanded  to  their  bondage. 
An  awful  decree  !  second  in  terribleness  only  to  that 
which  shall  divide  between  the  blessed  and  the  ac 
cursed  before  the  judgment-seat  of  God.  Within  the 
compass  of  human  action,  there  never  was  an  occasion 
that  demanded  more  unerring  justice  and  wisdom,  that 
invoked  more  foresight  and  solicitude,  that  appealed 
more  touchingly  to  every  sentiment  and  instinct  con 
genial  to  liberty,  with  which  God  has  endowed  and 
ennobled  the  soul  of  man,  so  to  devise  the  law,  if  law 
there  must  be,  as  not  to  involve  the  free  in  the  horrible 
doom  of  the  enslaved.  If,  in  the  administration  of 
penal  laws,  a  knowledge  of  human  fallibility  has 
forced  the  maxim  into  existence  and  into  practice, 
that  it  is  better  that  ninety-nine  guilty  persons  should 
escape  than  that  one  innocent  man  should  suffer,  ought 
not  the  same  benign  rule  to  be  adopted  in  our  legis 
lation  whenever  there  is  a  possibility  of  exposing  the 
free  to  the  fearful  fate  of  the  enslaved  ?  But  instead 
of  this  jealousy  and  circumspection,  what  have  we  ? 
A  law  whose  first  utterance  abjures  the  distinction 
between  freedom  and  bondage  ;  a  law  which  brings 
the  whole  free  colored  population  of  the  United  States 
within  the  outer  circles  of  the  whirlpool  of  slavery, 
that  they  may  be  ingulfed  in  its  vortex  :  a  law  which 
empowers  every  villain  in  the  country,  by  fabricating 
false  testimony  at  his  own  leisure  and  convenience,  to 
use  his  own  freedom  in  order  to  rob  other  people  of 
theirs  !  I  aver,  that  before  any  moral  tribunal,  where 


463 

right  and  wrong  are  weighed  in  the  balances  of  the 
sanctuary,  there  is  not  a  felony  described  in  the  whole 
statute  book  that  is  more  felonious  than  such  a  law. 

It  has  become  an  axiom  in  the  administration  of 
justice,  — an  axiom  slowly  evolved  by  the  wisdom  of 
ages,  but  now  firmly  established  and  incorporated  into 
the  jurisprudence  of  every  civilized  community,  — 
that  the  ethical  policy  of  the  law  will  tolerate  no  rule 
of  action  that  opens  the  door  to  fraud  or  crime,  but 
will  even  vacate  solemn  contracts  between  parties 
otherwise  competent,  in  its  jealousy  and  apprehension 
of  wrong.  Hence  the  law  applicable  to  common  car 
riers,  which  will  not  allow  a  man  to  exonerate  himself 
from  liability  even  by  express  notice,  lest  opportunity 
should  be  given  for  collusion  and  fraud.  Hence,  too, 
the  principle  of  law  which  forbids  an  insolvent  debtor 
to  pay,  or  even  to  contract  to  pay,  a  bona  fide  creditor 
in  anticipation  of  bankruptcy.  Now,  this  principle 
applies  with  tenfold  force  to  legislators,  —  withholding 
and  repelling  them  from  passing  any  law  which  may 
involve  the  innocent  in  the  fate  of  the  guilty,  or  the 
free  in  the  bondage  of  the  enslaved. 

But  the  law  violates  a  still  deeper  principle  than 
these.  I  do  not  recollect  the  instance  of  a  single 
northern  man  or  northern  press,  utterly  false  to  free 
dom,  and  venal  as  so  many  of  them  have  been,  that 
has  expressed  entire  satisfaction  with  the  law.  They 
palliate  it,  they  strive,  by  seductive  party  and  pecu 
niary  appeals,  to  beguile  men  into  its  support.  They 
look  outside  of  it  for  pretexts  to  hide  its  inherent  base 
ness  ;  but  not  one  of  them,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  had 
the  effrontery  to  justify  it  on  its  intrinsic  merits.  Even 
those  northern  men  who  voted  for  it  have  sought  ref 
uge  from  the  storm  of  righteous  indignation  that  burst 
upon  them,  by  alleging  that  it  was  an  essential  ingre 
dient  in  a  system  of  measures,  and  entered,  as  a 
necessary  element,  into  a  desirable  compromise. 


464 

When  this  language  is  translated,  what  does  it 
mean  ?  Simply  this,  and  no  more.  California  was 
admitted,  and  thereby  certain  political  and  commercial 
advantages  were  gained.  This,  in  legal  language,  was 
the  consideration.  The  Fugitive  Slave  law  was  passed, 
and  thereby  the  rights  of  freemen,  the  property  of 
men  in  themselves,  all  the  household  sanctities,  all  the 
domestic  endearments  of  half  a  million  of  men,  were 
put  in  peril.  This  was  the  equivalent  given !  A  mere 
barter  of  the  holiest  interests  for  wordly  advantages  ! 
And  these  interests  were  given  away  by  men  who  did 
not  own  them,  and  therefore  had  no  right  to  transfer 
them.  The  whites,  north  and  south,  played  a  game, 
and  made  the  black  people  their  stakes.  Who  author-^ 
ized  the  law-makers  to  derive  a  benefit  to  themselves 
from  doing  this  infinite  wrong  to  others  ?  Who  gave 
them  the  terrible  prerogative  of  making  others  suffer 
for  their  pleasure.  I  say  it  with  reverence,  but  I  still 
say  it  with  emphasis,  that  we  cannot  conceive  of  God 
himself  as  having  power  to  inflict  vicarious  suffering 
without  the  free  consent  of  the  sufferer  !  Yet  the 
atrocities  of  this  law  are  defended  by  those  who  made 
it,  on  the  ground  that  they  and  other  white  men  have 
secured  benefits  to  themselves  by  sacrificing  the  lib 
erty,  happiness  and  peace  of  half  a  million  of  their 
fellow-beings  of  a  different  color.  Cause  and  coun 
sellor  are  alike  ;  for  the  defence  is  as  profligate  as  the 
act  it  defends. 

I  say,  sir,  it  is  the  population  of  African  descent 
in  the  free  states  which  is  specially  put  in  peril  by 
this  law.  Occasionally,  indeed,  persons  of  unmixed 
white  blood  are  seized  and  enslaved  under  it.  These 
cases,  however,  are  comparatively  rare.  But  suppose 
the  reverse.  Suppose  circumstances  to  be  such  that 
the  whole  body  of  the  white  population  should  be  as 
much  endangered  by  it  as  the  colored  people  now  are. 
Suppose  that  not  only  the  white  voters  themselves, 


465 

but  their  Avives  and  their  children,  were  as  liable  to 
be  "Ingrahamed"  as  the  blacks  ;  suppose  this,  I  say, 
and  would  the  existence  of  the  law  be  tolerated  for 
an  hour?  Would  there  not  be  an  uprising  of  the 
people,  simultaneous  and  universal  against  it,  and  such 
a  yell  of  execration  as  never  before  burst  from  mortal 
lips  ?  The  name  of  every  man  who  had  voted  for  it, 
or  who  should  defend  it,  would  be  entered  upon  that 
apostate  list  at  whose  head  stands  the  name  of  Judas. 
Christian  and  Infidel,  Jew  and  Gentile,  would  execrate 
it  alike.  Why,  then,  if  they  would  do  this  to  avert 
such  peril  from  themselves  and  their  families,  do  they 
not  do  it  when  their  sable  brethren  are  in  jeopardy  ? 
Alas  !  there  is  but  one  answer !  From  selfish  consid 
erations,  from  the  love  of  wealth,  or  the  love  of 
power,  they  have  discarded  that  heaven-descended 
maxim,  "  Whatever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  unto 
you,  do  ye  the  same  unto  them." 

And  it  is  this  very  class  of  men  who  have  thus 
abjured  the  precepts  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  have  tram 
pled  upon  the  divine  doctrines  of  liberty  and  love, 
that  now  so  clamorously  summon  us  to  an  obedience 
to  law. 

In  answer  to  this  call,  let  me  say,  that  true  obedi 
ence  to  law  is  necessarily  accompanied  and  preceded 
by  a  reverence  for  those  great  principles  of  justice  and 
humanity  without  which  all  law  is  despotism.  How 
can  a  man  pretend  to  any  honest  regard  for  the  princi 
ple  of  obedience  to  law  when  he  is  willing,  as  in  the 
case  of  this  fugitive  act,  to  transcend  our  constitu 
tional  law,  and  to  invade  the  divine  law  ?  It  is  but 
an  appeal  to  the  lower  rule  of  action  to  justify  a  vio 
lation  of  the  higher.  Under  the  pretext  of  rendering 
unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Cassar's  it  denies  to 
God  the  things  that  are  God's. 

Arid  again,  a  true  reverence  for  law  is  a  general 
principle,  and  not  an  isolated,  fact.  It  applies  to  all 


466 

laws  collectively,  and  not  to  any  one  law  in  particu 
lar.  It  bestows  its  greatest  homage  upon  those  laws 
that  embrace  and  confer  the  most  of  human  welfare  ; 
for,  were  all  the  laws  of  a  community,  or  the  great 
majority  of  them,  unrighteous,  then  disloyalty  to  law 
would  be  the  virtue.  Can  the  class  of  men  who  de 
mand  our  allegiance  to  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  stand 
this  test  ?  We  have  usury  laws,  which  not  only  carry 
the  legal  force  of  statutes,  but  the  moral  power  of  the 
greatest  names  in  legislation  and  in  statesmanship. 
Are  the  men  in  New  York,  in  Philadelphia,  and  Bos 
ton,  who  are  most  vehement  in  support  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  law,  signalized  for  their  regard  to  the  statutes 
against  usury  ? 

Is  not  money  lent  in  all  those  cities  on  the  same 
principle  that  wreckers  send  a  rope's  end  to  a  drown 
ing  man,  —  for  as  much  as  they  can  extort?  It  is 
notorious  that  among  the  great  body  of  merchants  and 
capitalists  in  those  cities,  interest  is  regulated  by  the 
pressure  upon  the  money  market,  and  that  no  more 
idea  of  law  mingles  with  their  contracts  than  in  Cali 
fornia,  where  there  is  no  law  on  the  subject. 

We  have  laws  restricting  the  sale  of  intoxicating 
liquors,  and  designed  to  promote  the  glorious  object 
of  temperance.  For  which  practice  have  our  cities 
been  conspicuous,  —  for  their  obedience  to  these  laws 
or  for  their  violation  of  them  ?  A  few  years  ago,  when 
a  question  of  the  constitutionality  of  a  law  of  Massa 
chusetts  for  the  restraint  of  intemperance  arose,  did  not 
its  two  distinguished  senators  appear  in  the  supreme 
court  of  the  United  States,  and  make  the  most  stren 
uous  exertions  to  annul  the  law  of  their  own  state, 
and  to  open  anew  the  flood-gates  for  overwhelming 
their  own  constituents  in  misery  and  ruin,  —  the  self 
same  gentlemen  who  are  now  so  intolerant  even  of 
discussion  ? 

Look  at  the  complaints  which  corne  to  us  every  day 


ir.; 

from  the  friends  of  a  protective  tariff.  They  tell  us 
that  our  revenue  laws  are  fraudulently  and  systemat 
ically  evaded  j  and  they  number  the  violations  of  these 
laws  by  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands.  Who  are 
the  violators  ?  Not  men  living  in  the  country  ;  not  the 
fanners  and  mechanics  and  laborers,  —  the  substratum 
of  our  strength  and  the  origin  of  our  power ;  —  but 
they  are  the  city  merchants,  the  getters-up  of  "  Union 
meetings,"  and  the  members  of  "  safety  and  vigilance 
committees,"  who  are  so  earnest  in  inculcating  those 
lessons  of  obedience  by  their  precepts,  which  they  have 
done  so  little  to  recommend  by  their  example. 

The  Southern  States  are  loud  in  their  calls  upon  us 
to  execute  the  Fugitive  Slave  law.  But  what  exam 
ples  have  they  set  us  on  the  subject  of  obedience  to 
law  ?  I  think  I  may  be  pardoned  for  mentioning  a 
few  cases,  to  show  how  their  preaching  and  practice 
tally. 

In  1831,  the  legislature  of  Georgia  offered  a  bribe  of 
jive  thousand  dollars  to  any  one  who  would  arrest, 
and  bring  to  trial  and  conviction,  in  Georgia,  a  citizen 
of  Massachusetts,  named  William  Lloyd  Garrison. 
This  law  was  "approved"  by  William  Lumpkin,  gov 
ernor,  on  the  26th  December,  1831.  Mr.  Garrison  had 
never  stepped  foot  within  the  limits  of  Georgia,  and 
therefore  it  was  not  a  reward  for  his  trial  and  convic 
tion,  but  for  his  abduction  and  murder. 

At  a  meeting  of  slaveholders,  held  at  Sterling,  in  the 
same  state,  September  4,  1835,  it  was  formally  recom 
mended  to  the  governor,  to  offer,  by  proclamation,  the 
five  thousand  dollars  appropriated  by  the  act  of  1831, 
for  the  apprehension  of  either  of  ten  persons,  citizens, 
with  one  exception,  of  New  York,  or  Massachusetts, 
whose  names  were  given  ;  not  one  of  whom,  it  was 
riot  even  pretended,  had  ever  been  within  the  limits  of 
Georgia. 

The  Milledgeville,   Georgia,   "  Federal    Union,"  of 


468 

February  1,  1836,  contained  an  offer  of  $10,000  for 
kidnapping  A.  A.  Phelps,  a  clergyman  of  the  city  of 
New  York. 

The  committee  of  vigilance,  (another  "  committee 
of  vigilance,")  of  the  parish  of  East  Feliciana,  offered, 
in  the  Louisville  Journal,  of  October  15,  1835,  $50,000 
to  any  person  who  would  deliver  into  their  hands 
Arthur  Tappan,  a  merchant  of  New  York. 

At  a  public  meeting  of  the  citizens  of  Mount  Meigs, 
Alabama,  August  13,  1836,  the  honorable  Bedford 
Ginress  in  the  chair,  a  reward  of  $50,000  was  offered 
for  the  apprehension  of  the  same  Arthur  Tappan,  or 
of  Le  Roy  Sunderland,  a  Methodist  clergyman  of  New 
York. 

Repeated  instances  have  occurred  in  which  the  gov 
ernors  of  slave  states,  —  Virginia,  Georgia,  Kentucky, 
Alabama,  &c.,  —  have  made  requisitions  upon  the  gov 
ernors  of  free  states,  under  the  second  section  of  the 
fourth  article  of  the  constitution,  for  the  surrender  of 
free  citizens,  as  fugitives  from  justice,  when  it  was 
well  known  that  the  citizens  so  demanded  were  not 
within  the  limits  of  the  slave  states  at  the  time  when 
the  alleged  offence  was  committed,  and,  in  some  in 
stances,  had  never  been  there  in  their  lives, — high 
executive  perversions  of  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  by  chief  magistrates  who  had  sworn  to  sup 
port  it ! 

For  nearly  twenty  years  past  the  post-office  laws  of 
the  United  States  have  been  systematically  violated  in 
slave  states,  the  mail  bags  rifled,  and  their  contents 
seized  and  publicly  burned;  and,  in  some  instances, 
these  violations  have  been  enjoined,  under  heavy  pen 
alties,  by  a  law  of  the  states.  There  are  several  of  the 
slave  states  on  whose  statute  books  these  laws,  com 
manding  a  violation  of  the  post-office,  stand  to-day. 

During  Mr.  Adams's  administration,  a  man  by  the 
name  of  Tassels,  in  Georgia,  was  adjudged  to  be  hanged, 


469 

under  a  law  of  the  state,  as  clearly  unconstitutional  as 
was  ever  passed.  A  writ  of  error  was  sued  out  from 
the  supreme  court  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to 
bring  the  case  before  that  tribunal  for  revision.  Hut 
the  state  of  Georgia  anticipated  the  service  of  the  writ, 
and  made  sure  of  its  victim  by  hanging  him  extempo 
raneously. 

Within  a  few  weeks  past,  —  the  accounts  having  but 
just  now  reached  us,  —  an  aged  and  most  respectable  in 
dividual  of  the  name  of  Harris,  a  citizen  of  New  Hamp 
shire,  has  been  tried  by  a  mob  in  South  Carolina,  and 
tarred  and  feathered,  because  he  happened  to  have  in 
his  trunk  a  sermon  which  had  been  sent  to  him  by  one 
of  his  acquaintances,  a  clergyman  at  the  north  ;  though 
he  had  never  showed  the  sermon  to  a  single  individual, 
nor  whispered  a  word  of  its  contents.  Another  man,  a 
Dr.  Coles,  belonging  to  Boston,  who  had  been  lecturing 
on  the  subject  of  physiology,  was,  within  a  few  days, 
seized  and  carried  before  a  magistrate,  in  the  same 
state,  his  trunks  rifled,  the  private  letters  sent  to  him  by 
his  wife  and  family  publicly  read,  with  the  most  inde 
cent  comments,  and  all  without  any  shadow  of  reason 
able  suspicion  against  him. 

The  unconstitutional  imprisonment  of  northern  sea 
men  in  southern  ports  is  an  occurrence  so  frequent,  and 
so  universally  known,  that  I  need  not  spend  time  to 
enumerate  or  to  describe  the  cases. 

The  President  of  the  United  States  has  made  procla 
mation,  and  proffered  the  military  and  naval  force  of 
the  United  States,  to  aid  any  southern  slave  owner  in 
reducing  his  fugitive  slave  to  a  new  bondage  ;  but  I 
have  not  heard  that  he  has  made  any  similar  proclama 
tion,  or  manifested  any  anxiety  for  the  support  of  that 
part  of  the  constitution  which  says  that  "  the  citizens 
of  each  state  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the  privileges  and 
immunities  of  citizens  in  the  several  states." 

Now,  with  a  few  exceptions,  it  is  these  very  classes 
40 


470 

of  men  who  violate  the  laws  against  extortion  and 
usury ;  who  break  down  the  barriers  against  the  deso 
lations  of  intemperance ;  who,  almost  alone  of  all  our 
citizens,  are  implicated  in  the  breach  of  the  revenue 
laws  ;  who  annul  the  post-office  laws  of  the  United 
States ;  who  offer  rewards  for  free  northern  citizens, 
that  they  may  get  them  in  their  clutch  to  lynch  and 
murder  them  ;  who  demand  free  citizens  as  fugitives 
from  justice,  in  states  where  they  have  never  been,  and 
who  imprison  free  citizens  and  sell  them  into  slavery ; 
—  it  is  these  classes  of  men  who  are  now  so  suddenly 
smitten  with  a  new  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  law,  and 
of  the  duty  of  obedience  to  law,  —  not  of  the  laws  of 
God,  not  even  of  the  laws  of  man,  in  general,  but  of  this 
most  abominable  of  all  enactments,  the  Fugitive  Slave 
law  in  particular. 

I  do  not  cite  the  above  cases  from  among  a  thousand 
similar  ones,  as  any  justification  or  apology  for  forcible 
and  organized  resistance  to  law  by  those  who  even 
constructively  can  be  said  to  have  given  it  their  con 
sent.  But  the  words  of  a  preacher  do  not  "  come 
mended  from  his  tongue,"  when  his  name  is  a  scandal 
among  men  for  his  violation  of  all  the  precepts  he 
enjoins. 

And  now,  sir,  when  I  am  called  upon  to  support 
such  a  law  as  this,  or  to  desist  from  opposing  it  in  all 
constitutional  ways,  while  it  lasts,  my  response  is,  re 
peal  the  law,  that  I  may  no  longer  be  called  upon  to 
support  it.  In  the  name  of  my  constituents,  and  by 
the  memory  of  that  "  old  man  eloquent,"  in  whose 
place  it  is  rny  fortune  to  stand,  I  demand  its  repeal.  I 
demand  it,  — 

Because  it  is  a  law  which  wars  against  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  human  liberty. 

Because  it  is  a  law  which  conflicts  with  the  consti 
tution  of  the  country,  and  with  all  the  judicial  interpre 
tations  of  that  constitution,  wherever  they  have  been 
applied  to  the  white  race. 


471 

Because  it  is  a  law  which  introduces  a  fatal  principle 
into  the  code  of  evidence,  and  into  judicial  practice,  — 
a  principle,  before  which  no  man's  liberties  and  no 
man's  rights  of  any  kind  can  stand. 

Because  it  is  a  law  which  is  abhorrent  to  the  moral 
and  religious  sentiments  of  a  vast  majority  of  the  com 
munity  that  is  called  upon  to  enforce  it. 

Because  the  life  and  character  of  so  many  of  its 
apologists  and  supporters  are  themselves  potent  argu 
ments  against  whatever  they  may  advocate. 

Because  it  is  a  law  which,  if  executed  in  the  free 
states,  divests  them  of  the  character  of  free  states,  and 
makes  them  voluntary  participators  in  the  guilt  of 
slaveholding. 

Because  it  is  a  law  which  disgraces  our  country  in 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  civilized  world,  and  gives  plau 
sible  occasion  to  the  votaries  of  despotic  power  to  decry 
republican  institutions. 

Because  it  is  a  law  which  forbids  us  to  do  unto 
others  as  we  would  have  them  do  to  us,  and  which 
makes  it  a  crime  to  feed  the  hungry,  to  clothe  the 
naked,  and  to  visit  and  succor  the  sick  and  the  im 
prisoned. 

Because  it  is  a  law  which  renders  the  precepts  of  the 
gospel  and  the  teachings  of  Jesus  Christ  seditious  ; 
and,  were  the  Savior  and  his  band  of  disciples  now 
upon  earth,  there  is  but  one  of  them  who  would  escape 
its  penalties  by  pretending  "  to  conquer  his  prejudices." 
And,  finally, 

Because  the  advocates  and  defenders  of  this  law 
have  been  compelled  to  place  its  defence  upon  the  ex 
press  ground  that  the  commandments  of  men  are  of 
higher  authority  than  the  ordinances  of  God. 

In  Hooker's  sublime  description  of  law,  when  under 
stood  in  its  generic  sense,  he  says,  — 

lt  Of  law  there  can  be  no  less  acknowledged  than 
that  her  seat  is  the  bosom  of  God,  her  voice  the  har- 


472 

mony  of  the  world ;  all  things  in  heaven  and  earth  do 
her  homage,  the  very  least  as  feeling  her  care,  and  the 
greatest  as  not  exempted  from  her  power ;  both  angels, 
and  men,  and  creatures,  of  what  condition  soever, 
though  each  in  different  sort  and  manner,  yet  all  with 
uniform  consent,  admiring  her  as  the  mother  of  their 
peace  and  joy." 

Now,  sir,  with  these  glorious  attributes  of  "  law,"  I 
say  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  of  the  last  session  possesses 
not  one  quality  in  common,  nor  in  similitude.  To  say 
that  the  seat  of  such  a  law  is  in  the  "  bosom  of  God," 
is  the  intensest  blasphemy.  To  say  that  it  is  "  the  har 
mony  of  the  world,"  is  to  declare  that  the  world  is  a 
sphere  of  ubiquitous  and  omnipotent  wrong,  uncheck- 
ered  by  any  thought  of  justice,  and  devoid  of  any  emo 
tion  of  love.  To  say  that  "  all  things  in  heaven  do 
homage  "  to  such  a  law,  is  to  affirm  of  the  realms  of 
light  what  is  true  only  of  the  realms  of  darkness.  The 
"least"  do  not  "feel  its  care,"  but  tremble  and  wail 
beneath  its  cruelty ;  while  the  "  greatest "  and  the 
strongest  arc  "  exempt  from  its  power  ;  "  for  they  made 
it  not  for  themselves  but  for  others.  To  no  class  of 
"creatures,"  rational  or  irrational,  human  or  divine, 
can  it  prove  to  be  the  "  mother  of  peace  and  joy  ;  " 
but  wherever  it  extends,  and  as  long  as  it  exists,  it  will 
continue  to  be  an  overflowing  Marah  of  bitterness  and 
strife. 

As  the  great  name  of  Hooker  has  been  profanely 
cited  in  behalf  of  this  law,  I  will  close  by  quoting  his 
distinction  between  those  laws  of  human  governments 
which  ought  to  be  obeyed,  and  those  which  ought 
not :  — 

"  which  laws,"  says  he,  "  we  must  obey,  unless 

there  be  reason  showed  which  may  necessarily  enforce 

that  THE  LAW  OF  REASON  OR  OF  GoD  DOTH  ENJOIN  THE 
CONTRARY." 


473 


SPEECH 

ON  THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW,  DELIVERED  AT  LANCASTER, 
MASSACHUSETTS,  MAY  19,  1851,  PENDING  THE  CANVASS  FOR 
A  MEMBER  OF  CONGRESS  FOR  THE  FOURTH  CONGRESSIONAL 
DISTRICT. 

FELLOW-CITIZENS  ; 

We  are  assembled  on  a  great  occasion  and  for  a  great 
purpose.  The  election  of  a  member  of  Congress,  in 
deed,  is  not  an  extraordinary  event  ;  but  it  is  extraor 
dinary  that  principles  of  the  most  vital  importance  to 
the  honor  of  Massachusetts,  and  to  the  cause  of  human 
liberty  throughout  the  world,  should  be  involved  in  a 
local  election.  Such,  however,  is  now  the  fact. 

Gentlemen,  the  assertion  and  the  recognition  of  the 
rights  of  man  have  made  great  progress  among  the 
nations  of  Europe  within  the  recollection  of  many 
who  are  now  before  me.  Notwithstanding  the  parti 
tion  of  Poland  by  allied  robbers,  and  the  obliteration 
of  that  kingdom  from  the  map  of  Europe  ;  notwith 
standing  Hungarian  subjugation  to  Austrian  despotism, 
and  many  other  atrocious  crimes  against  humanity, 
such  as  nations  only  can  commit ;  for  they  are  too  vast 
and  monstrous  to  be  perpetrated  by  any  individual,  — 
I  say,  notwithstanding  these  facts,  the  great  fabric  of 
human  liberty  has  been  rising  in  Europe,  while  the 
solid  structures  of  despotism  have  been  disintegrating 
and  making  ready  for  their  fall. 

But  truth  compels  me  to  acknowledge  that,  during 

the  last  three  quarters  of  a  century,  our  course,  in  this 

country,    has    been    downward.       While    among    the 

other  nations  of  Christendom  the  altar-fires  of  liberty 

40* 


474 

have  been  kindling  and  burning  with  a  brighter  flame, 
ours  have  been  waning.  At  the  foundation  of  our 
government  an  institution  existed  amongst  us  utterly 
irreconcilable  with  the  fundamental  principles  of  the 
government  itself.  But  it  was  then  limited  in  its 
extent,  and  its  spirit  nowhere  existed  in  great  in 
tensity.  Even  those  who  cherished  it  most  were 
ashamed  of  it ;  and  in  those  provisions  of  the  consti 
tution  which  were  designed  for  its  temporary  protec 
tion,  a  common  regard  for  decency  forbade  the  men 
tion  of  its  name.  Fatally  to  our  own  peace  and  honor, 
that  which  was  then  regarded  as  temporary  and  local, 
now  threatens  to  be  abiding  and  universal.  From 
speaking  of  slavery  with  hushed  breath,  its  bold  abet 
tors  now  shout  forth  its  praises.  From  providing  for 
the  extermination  of  the  African  slave  trade,  they  have 
converted  the  slave  states  into  another  Africa,  this 
side  the  tropics  ;  and  by  the  successful  robbery  of  a 
neighboring  republic,  they  seek  to  create  a  new  Ameri 
ca,  so  that  the  slave  trade,  once  abolished  and  de 
clared  piracy,  may  be  revived  and  legalized.  The 
Middle  Passage  is  to  be  transferred  from  the  ocean  to 
the  land.  Maryland,  Virginia,  Kentucky,  &c.,  are  to 
be  the  Gold  Coast,  Benin,  and  the  Galinas  ;  the  place 
of  supply,  the  place  of  demand,  and  the  highways  of 
commerce  between  them  are  to  be  within  our  own 
borders  and  protected  by  the  American  flag  ;  and  that 
horrid  traffic  which  all  the  leading  nations  of  Christen 
dom  united  in  declaring  to  be  a  felony  punishable  with 
death,  is  rio\v  to  be  maintained  and  deiended  amongst 
ourselves,  under  penalty  of  death  and  a  dissolution  of 
the  Union. 

Nor  does  it  suffice  that  the  tide  of  slavery  should 
rise  and  overflow  the  vast  and  uninhabited  regions  of 
the  west.  It  surges  up  against  the  free  states  them 
selves,  and  all  the  dikes  and  barriers  of  that  constitu 
tional  law  which  we  have  been  enacting  for  seventy- 


475 

five  years,  cannot  stay  its  flood.  We  thought  that 
Massachusetts  was  the  impregnable  citadel  of  freedom  ; 
but  unconstitutional  and  inhuman  laws,  dictated  hy 
slaveholders,  are  now  enforced  amongst  us,  and  at  our 
very  doors;  and  our  services  are  commanded  for  their 
execution. 

Thank  God,  there  is  a  part  of  our  people  who, 
while  they  suffer,  resist.  Only  a  portion  amongst  us 
have  reached  that  lowest  depth  of  degradation,  where 
they  surrender,  not  their  limbs  only,  but  their  wills,  to 
the  hateful  service  of  their  masters.  Slavery  has  done 
its  perfect  work  only  when  the  sonl  is  enslaved.  I 
rejoice  to  believe  that  we  have  not  only  seven  thou 
sand  in  this  our  Massachusetts  Israel,  who  have  not 
bowed  the  knee  to  Baal,  but  seven  hundred  thousand; 
and  recent  events  foretell  not  only  an  increasing  num 
ber,  but  a  more  determined  opposition. 

Why  is  it,  fellow-citizens,  that  Massachusetts  stands 
first,  or  among  the  first,  in  1851,  in  her  hostility  to  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law  ?  I  answer,  for  the  very  reason 
that  she  stood  first  in  her  hostility  to  the  encroach 
ments  of  the  British  crown  in  1776.  And  in  less 
than  seventy-five  years  from  this  time,  those  who  op 
pose  and  those  who  defend  this  inhuman  law,  will 
stand,  historically,  as  wide  asunder,  and  will  share  as 
high  an  honor  or  suffer  as  deep  an  ignominy,  as  is  now 
awarded  to  the  lovers  of  freedom  and  the  minions  of 
power  who  lived  at  the  era  of  the  revolution.  Let 
all  young  men  beware  not  to  be  seduced  by  any  temp 
tations  of  immediate  profit  or  mistaken  honor,  to  lift  a 
hand  in  defence  of  this  law.  If  they  do,  then,  before 
they  have  lived  out  half  their  lives,  they  will  be  as 
ready  as  old  Cranmer  to  thrust  the  offending  member 
into  the  flames,  and  to  say  with  him,  "  This  hand,  this 
wicked  hand,  has  offended." 

Gentlemen,  we  in  Massachusetts  are  a  Union-loving, 
and  law-abiding  people.  Mr.  Webster  and  his  "  retain- 


476 

ers  "  may  spare  their  breath  in  exhorting  us  to  abide 
by  the  Union.  Such  a  work,  in  this  commonwealth,  is 
a  work  of  supererogation.  He  knows,  and  they  know, 
that  the  number  of  disunionists  in  this  state  can  be 
counted  on  a  man's  fingers  and  toes.  Whatever  influ 
ence  they  exert  must  flow  from  their  zeal,  their  talents, 
and  their  private  character  ;  for  they  derive  none  from 
numerical  force.  Were  they  all  to  settle  in  one  of  our 
small  towns,  they  would  be  out-voted  by  its  inhabit 
ants.  I  regard  these  ever-repeated  appeals  made  to 
Massachusetts  rnen  and  to  New  England  men  to  stand 
by  the  Union,  as  not  merely  obtrusive,  but  as  aflront- 
ive  and  insulting.  Besides,  when  a  man  undertakes 
the  mission  of  going  round  the  country,  preaching 
honesty,  or  temperance,  or  chastity,  he  provokes  the 
inquiry  whether  he  is  more  honest,  temperate,  or  con 
tinent  than  those  whom  he  exhorts.  If  the  union  of 
these  states  now  is,  or  has  ever  been  verging  towards 
a  point  of  danger,  it  is  solely  and  only  because  ambi 
tious  men  and  mercenary  men  at  the  north  have  given 
it  that  direction  by  recognizing  southern  threats  and 
bravadoes  as  realities,  and  thus  encouraging  them. 
Let  the  greatest  coward  see  that  his  threats  are  ac 
knowledged  as  verities,  and  he  will  adopt  the  cheap 
mode  of  threatening  instead  of  the  hazardous  one  of 
acting.  Could  the  Chinese  have  frightened  away  the 
British  fleet  by  their  battery  of  wooden  cannon,  having 
the  middle  of  the  ends  painted  black  for  a  muzzle, 
they  would  have  been  fools  to  incur  the  expense  of 
brass  or  iron.  But  John  Bull  did  not  care  whether  the 
cannon  were  of  wood  or  of  metal,  and  at  his  first  fire 
the  Celestials  scampered.  But  here,  when  a  few  men 
in  a  few  states  pointed  their  wooden  guns  at  us,  Mr. 
Webster,  General  Cass.  and  others,  for  their  own  am 
bitious  purposes,  cried  out  that  the  Union  was  in  dan 
ger.  I  say,  then,  if  the  union  of  these  states  ever 
has  been  in  any  proximity  to  danger,  it  was  not  from 


477 

menaces  uttered  by  the  south,  but  from  northern  in 
dorsement  of  them.  If  northern  leaders  had  dishon 
ored  instead  of  indorsing  this  spurious  paper,  it  never 
would  have  got  into  circulation. 

\\V  are  not  only  Union-loving  men,  but,  as  I  said 
before,  we  are  law-abiding  men.  Had  this  not  been 
so,  not  all  the  fleets  and  armies  in  the  world  could  have 
carried  Thomas  Sims  into  bondage.  So  intimately 
blended  is  the  reverence  for  law  with  the  very  soul  of 
our  people,  that  if  you  could  convince  them  that  a 
statute  has  legal  force  and  is  binding  upon  the  con 
science,  I  verily  believe  our  juries  would  give  a  verdict 
in  favor  of  Shylock,  though  the  pound  of  flesh  which 
he  claimed  were  to  be  carved  from  their  own  bosoms. 
Tliis  side  of  a  just  cause  for  revolution,  they  will  yield 
submission  to  all  laws  enacted  by  the  government, 
with  one  single  exception.  The  exception  I  mean, 
embraces  those  laws  of  men  which  are  clearly  con 
trary  to  the  law  of  God.  And  I  trust  the  time  is  not 
now,  and  never  will  be,  when  the  children  of  the 
Puritans  will  obey  any  commandment  of  human  origin 
if  it  conflicts  with  a  divine  command,  though  they 
have  to  lie  down  in  lions'  dens  or  walk  through  fur 
nace  fires,  as  the  penalty  of  disobedience. 

But  with  this  sentiment  of  reverence  for  law  is 
another  sentiment,  which  is  its  proper  attendant  and 
brother,  —  I  mean  a  desire  and  a  determination  to 
know  what  that  is  which  is  called  law  ;  what  it  is  that 
claims  this  prerogative  of  controlling  the  will  and 
challenging  the  conscience.  It  is  in  this  spirit  that 
they  have  discussed  and  mean  to  discuss  the  Fugitive 
Slave  law,  and  to  bring  it,  Protestant  fashion,  to  the 
test  of  individual  judgment  and  conscience. 

I  have  no  need  to  repeat  to  you  the  general  pro 
visions  of  this  inhuman  enactment.  No  lover  of  lib 
erty  can  read  them  without  having  their  atrocious 
character  burned  into  his  mind  ineffaceably.  You 


478 

know  that  it  assumes  to  dispose  of  the  highest  inter 
ests  of  human  liberty^  —  the  liberty  of  soul  as  well  as 
the  liberty  of  person  ;  —  and  you  know  that  it  also 
assumes  to  dispose  of  the  most  precious  interests  of 
property,  —  the  property  that  a  man  has  in  himself  and 
in  all  his  capacities  of  physical  enjoyment  and  suffer 
ing  as  well  as  his  property  in  his  money  or  his  goods ; 
—  without  a  single  one  of  those  safeguards  and  pro 
tections  which  the  constitution  of  the  country  builds 
up  like  a  rampart  of  defence  around  us  all.  This  en 
actment,  too,  is  no  theoretic  affair;  it  is  no  dead  letter 
on  the  statute  book.  It  is  a  living  monster,  uncaged 
and  turned  loose  amongst  us,  to  rob  arid  devour  at  its 
will. 

Now,  I  have  two  objections  to  this  law,  which  ab 
solve  me  from  all  obligations  to  execute  it,  or,  in  any 
way  or  manner,  to  assist  in  executing  it.  First,  I  be 
lieve  it  to  be  contrary  to  the  law  of  God,  which,  God 
helping  me,  shall  be  the  rule  of  my  conduct,  though  I 
should  scatter  political  treasons  as  the  autumn  wind 
scatters  leaves.  In  his  dread  description  of  the  judg 
ment  day,  Jesus  Christ  makes  the  distinction  between 
saints  and  sinners  to  turn  upon  the  fact,  whether  they 
have  fed  the  hungry,  clothed  the  naked,  and  visited 
those  who  were  sick  and  in  prison.  And  who  so 
hungry  as  those  who  do  not  own,  and  cannot  own  a 
morsel  of  bread  ?  Who  so  naked  as  those  who  do  not 
own,  and  cannot  own  a  shred  of  a  garment  to  protect 
them  from  cold,  or  from  the  lascivious  eye  ?  And  what 
confinement  was  ever  so  hopeless  as  southern  slavery, 
what  prison  was  ever  so  deep  as  that  prison-house 
which  holds  three  millions  of  our  fellow-beings  within 
its  melancholy  walls. —  them  and  their  posterity  forever? 
He  that  refuses  the  common  acts  of  hospitality  to  these 
victims,  when  fleeing  from  their  bondage,  denies  his 
Lord  and  Master.  He  that  refuses  them,  disobeys 
every  precept  of  the  Savior,  and  has  no  more  right  to 


479 

call  himself  a  Christian,  than  has  the  Fejee  islander, 
when  he  rises  from  his  cannibal  banquet.  He  is  the 
Levite  who  passes  by  on  the  other  side. 

And  next,  I  hold  this  law  to  be  contrary  to  the  con 
stitution  of  the  United  States,  and  therefore  of  no 
binding  force  upon  my  conscience  or  my  conduct.  I 
do  not  mean  to  say  by  this  that  I  shall  make  forcible 
opposition  to  it.  I  take  the  Quaker  ground  upon  this 
subject  ;  I  will  not  assist  to  execute  it,  though  I  shall 
suffer  it  to  execute  itself  on  me. 

The  constitutionality  of  this  law  has  been  exten 
sively  discussed.  But  there  is  this  broad  difference 
between  the  arguments  of  those  who  affirm  and  those 
who  deny  that  it  is  constitutional.  Those  who  deny 
it,  argue  the  question  upon  its  merits,  upon  principle, 
upon  those  legal  relations  and  analogies  that  so  nobly 
characterize  the  English  law  on  the  subject  of  human 
liberty.  But  those  who  affirm  the  constitutionality 
of  the  law,  base  their  argument  upon  technicalities 
and  upon  precedents,  and  they  cannot  sustain  them 
selves  for  a  moment  on  any  other  ground.  They 
found  themselves,  in  the  first  place,  upon  the  statutory 
precedent  of  1793,  which  was  an  act  passed  with  very 
little  deliberation,  as  its  history  shows,  and  passed,  too, 
when  it  was  expected  on  all  hands  that  slavery  would 
soon  die  out.  In  the  next  place,  they  rely  upon  the 
judicial  precedent  of  Prigg's  case,  which  was  made  by 
a  bench  of  slaveholding  judges,  and  some  of  the  points 
which  the  court  professed  to  decide  did  not  arise  in 
the  case. 

Now  the  statutory  precedent  covers  only  a  part  of 
the  case  ;  for  some  of  the  most  hateful  features  of  the 
law  of  1850  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  law  of  1793  ; 
and  the  supreme  court  has  never  passed  upon  the  law 
of  1850  at  all.  So  two  points  are  clear  in  the  outset, 
that  the  champions  of  the  law  cannot  get  along  with- 


480 

out  the  precedents,  and  the  precedents,  in  several  most 
important  particulars,  fail  them  altogether.* 

This  question  has  lately  been  discussed  in  our  own 
vicinity.  The  liberty  of  a  resident  of  Massachusetts, 
—  a  man  every  way  entitled  to  a  jury  trial  by  our  con 
stitution  and  laws,  as  much  as  you  or  I,  —  has  been 
sacrificed  by  a  United  States  commissioner  in  the  city 
of  Boston. f  He  has  decided  in  favor  of  the  law. 
You  would  naturally  suppose  that,  in  order  to  shelter 
himself  from  the  odium  of  such  a  decision,  he  would 
put  all  personal  and  all  collateral  resources  into  requi 
sition  to  make  the  case  as  plausible  as  ingenuity  can 
make  it.  It  is  said,  too,  that  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr. 
Webster's  friends,  and  the  commissioner's  friends  have 
contributed  of  their  strength  to  help  the  debility  of 
the  case.  While  the  cause  was  pending  before  him, 
one  of  the  points  involved  in  it  was  brought  before 
the  supreme  court  of  Massachusetts,  and  also  before 
the  circuit  court  of  the  United  States.  The  commis 
sioner  adjourned  the  case  over  after  all  the  arguments 
of  counsel  were  in.  He  thereby  gave  himself  an  op 
portunity  for  preparation  and  for  consultation.  I  am 

=*  It  is  substantially  conceded  by  the  supreme  court  of  Massachu 
setts,  in  delivering  their  opinion  on  the  application  of  Sims  for  a  writ 
of  habeas  corpus^  that  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  stands  upon  precedent 
alone,  and  is  disowned  by  principle.  Chief  Justice  Shaw  says,  — 

"  At  the  same  time  it  may  be  proper  to  say,  that  if  this  argument, 
drawn  from  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  were  now  first  ap 
plied  to  the  law  of  1793,  deriving  no  sanction  from  contemporaneous 
construction,  judicial  precedent,  and  the  acquiescence  of  the  general 
and  state  governments,  the  argument  from  the  limitation  of  judicial 
power  would  be  entitled  to  very  grave  consideration." 

I  submit  that  the  precedents,  on  this  subject,  both  legislative  and 
judicial,  are  substantially  divested  of  all  their  force,  by  the  fewness 
of  the  cases  that  have  ever  arisen  under  the  law,  by  the  general  ob 
soleteness  into  which  it  fell,  and,  more  than  all,  by  that  uniform  in 
difference  and  neglect,  and  I  may  add  inhumanity,  with  which  colored 
people  and  the  rights  of  colored  people,  have  been  almost  universally 
regarded  in  the  different  states  of  the  Union. 

f  Mr.  George  T.  Curtis. 


481 

taking  no  exception  to  all  this.  I  am  glad  it  was 
done.  I  suppose  we  now  have  the  breadth  and  length 
and  strength  of  what  can  be  alleged  in  favor  of  the 
law.  I  never  feel  so  confident  of  my  conclusions  as 
when  strong  men  have  taken  the  opposite  side,  and 
have  failed  to  sustain  it. 

Now,  to  this  decision  of  the  commissioner,  made  under 
such  incitements,  and  with  such  opportunities,  I  pro 
pose  to  invite  your  attention.  The  discussion  may  be 
dry,  but  it  will  not  be  uninteresting  ;  for  it  involves 
matters  as  important  as  the  liberty  of  the  body  and  the 
liberty  of  the  will,  and  the  liberty  and  life  of  the 
human  soul. 

It  may  be  said  that  these  are  legal  and  constitutional 
questions,  and,  therefore,  that  unprofessional  men  can 
not  understand  them.  But  most,  if  not  all  the  points 
which  I  shall  bring  to  your  attention,  are  matters  of 
intuition  ;  questions  wholly  within  the  jurisdiction  of 
plain  common  sense,  and  such,  therefore,  as  can  be 
decided  by  you  as  well  as  by  lawyers  or  judges.  And 
if  I  can  convince  you  of  the  inconclusiveness  of  some 
parts  of  this  decision,  of  the  legal  Jesuitism  of  other 
parts,  and  of  the  self-contradiction  that  pervades  the 
whole,  you  will  not  hesitate  to  set  it  aside,  not  as  null 
and  void  merely,  but  as  discreditable  to  the  profession 
of  the  law,  and  dishonorable  to  the  State  of  Massa 
chusetts. 

The  first  point  which  the  commissioner  discusses  is, 
whether  in  seizing,  by  his  warrant,  a  man  actually 
free,  in  deciding,  by  his  judgment,  the  exact  question, 
whether  that  man  were  a  slave,  and  in  sending  him,  by 
his  certificate,  where  the  lash  and  the  law  of  slavery 
apply  to  his  body  and  his  spirit,  he  were  exercising 
"judicial  power  "  as  conferred  by  the  constitution  of 
the  United  States  upon  such  courts  as  Congress  should 
establish.  He  at  first  decides  that  he  does  not  exercise 
such  power.  This  was  well ;  for  he  knows  that  he 
41 


482 

was  never  appointed,  nor  commissioned,  nor  sworn, 
nor  is  paid,  nor  removable  from  office  for  mal-conduct, 
as  is  prescribed  by  the  constitution  in  the  case  of 
judges.  Badly  heroic  as  he  was,  in  fact,  in  exercising 
jurisdiction  over  a  human  being,  and  delivering  him 
over  into  hopeless  and  irremediable  bondage,  he  was 
not  mad  enough  to  arrogate,  in  terms,  the  prerogative 
of  "judicial  power" 

But  what  says  his  superior,  the  attorney-general  of 
the  United  States  ?  In  an  elaborate  opinion,  given  by 
order  of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  —  an  opin 
ion  which,  as  I  suppose,  passed  under  the  supervision 
of  the  whole  cabinet,  and  therefore  may  be  presumed 
to  have  the  authority  of  Mr.  Webster  and  the  other 
constitutional  advisers  of  the  President,  and  which 
certainly  had  the  sanction  of  the  President  himself,  for 
he  acted  upon  it,  —  in  this  opinion  the  attorney-gen 
eral  says,  — 

"  These  officers,  [the  commissioners,]  and  each  of  them, 
have  judicial  power,  and  jurisdiction  to  hear,  examine,  and 
decide  the  case." 

"  The  certificate  to  be  granted  to  the  owner  is  to  be  regarded 
as  the  act  and  judgment  of  a  judicial  tribunal,  having  com 
petent  jurisdiction.'1'' 

"  Congress  has  constituted  a  tribunal,  with  exclusive  juris 
diction  to  determine  summarily,  and  without  appeal,  who  are 
fugitives  from  service." 

"  The  judgment  of  the  tribunal,  created  by  this  act,  is  con 
clusive  upon  all  tribunals" 

Now,  which  is  right,  the  attorney-general,  with  the 
President  and  his  cabinet  as  indorsers,  or  Mr.  Com 
missioner  Curtis?  I  submit  to  you  that  the  former 
were  clearly  right,  so  far  as  this,  —  that  when  the  con 
stitution  declares  that  "  no  person  shall  be  deprived  of 
life,  liberty,  or  property,  without  due  process  of  law," 
(which  imports  a  trial  by  jury.)  then  neither  Adam 
Gibson,  nor  Thomas  Sims,  nor  any  other  alleged 


483 

fugitive  can  be  so  deprived,  without  trial  by  jury,  and 
the  judgment  or  sentence  of  the  "judicial  power  " 
tlHTcupon.  The  following  position  has  never  been  an 
swered,  and  I  think  never  can  be,  namely,  that  if  a 
resident  of  Massachusetts  can  be  deprived  of  his  "  lib 
erty  and  property,"  without  a  trial  by  jury  and  a  judg 
ment  of  a  court,  then  he  may  be  deprived  of  his  life 
also  ;  for  "  life,  liberty,  and  property  "  are  secured  in 
the  same  section,  in  the  same  sentence,  and  by  the 
same  safeguard. 

The  attorney-general  held  that,  as  the  power  exer 
cised  by  the  commissioner  was  a  "  judicial  power,"  it 
deprived  the  party  of  all  benefit  from  the  habeas  cor 
pus.  And  there  was  some  plausibility  in  this,  though, 
I  think,  no  soundness.  But  our  defenders  of  the  law 
hold  that  this  sending  of  a  man  into  bondage  is  not  a 
part  of  the  "judicial  power,"  and  yet  that  it  deprives 
him  of  all  benefit  of  the  habeas  corpus.  That  is,  they 
hold  that  a  man  may  be  deprived  of  his  liberty  and 
property,  (and  of  course  of  his  life.)  by  a  ministerial 
proceeding,  not  having  its  origin  in  any  court,  and  not 
to  be  prosecuted  to  final  judgment  in  any  court,  and 
yet  that  all  the  courts  in  the  land,  competent  to  furnish 
relief  in  any  other  case,  can  afford  none  in  this.  If 
this  be  true,  if  a  proceeding,  held  and  acknowledged 
by  the  officer  who  initiates  and  conducts  it  to  be  a 
ministerial  proceeding,  not  originated  by  a  court,  and 
never  to  be  carried  before  a  court,  does  thus  take  away 
the  trial  by  jury,  and  the  security  of  having  one's  lib 
erty  and  property  adjudicated  upon  by  a  "  court,"  and 
renders  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus  an  empty  form,  then, 
indeed,  we  may  bid  "  farewell,  a  long  farewell  "  to  all 
(jur  liberties.  An  unprincipled  majority  of  Congress 
has  only  to  pass  a  law  that  any  man  may  be  im 
prisoned  or  hanged  on  an  executive  warrant,  and  that 
the  hireling  marshal  or  commissioner  shall  suffer  no 
"  molestation  by  any  process  issued  by  any  court, 


484 

judge,  magistrate,  or  other  person  whomsoever,"  and 
despotic  power  will  be  enthroned  here  as  effectually  as 
it  ever  was  in  England  in  the  bloody  days  of  the  Stu 
art's.  Jeffries  was  at  least  a  judge,  though  he  acted 
like  a  commissioner. 

Who  could  have  imagined,  eight  months  ago,  that 
a  ministerial  proceeding  could  put  a  citizen  beyond 
remedy  or  reach  of  our  courts  ? 

I  now  come  to  a  position  in  the  commissioner's  ar 
gument  which  is  not  only  transparently  fallacious,  but 
is  contradicted  by  himself,  in  the  same  opinion,  again 
and  again.  I  shall  offer  a  series  of  objections  to  it. 

The  point  was  pressed  upon  him  by  counsel  that  he 
was  exercising  '-'judicial  power."  To  maintain  this,  a 
passage  was  quoted  from  Prigg's  case,  in  which  the 
court  say,  "  A  claim  made  by  the  owner  out  of  posses 
sion  for  the  delivery  of  a  slave constitutes,  in 

the  strictest  sense,  a  controversy  between  the  parties, 
and  a  case  arising  under  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  within  the  express  delegation  of  judicial  power, 
given  by  that  instrument."  Can  any  thing  be  more 
explicit  arid  conclusive,  to  prove  that  the  commissioner 
was  then  presuming  to  exercise  a  part  of  the  "judicial 
power "  conferred  by  Congress  exclusively  upon 
courts  ?  And  how  does  he  answer  it  ?  In  this  way, 
and  in  this  way  only.  He  says  the  court  decide  two 
points :  — 

First,  —  That  a  claim  for  a  fugitive  slave  is  a  case 
arising  under  the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
so  within  the  grant  of  "judicial  power"  as  given  by 
the  constitution  ;  and 

Second,  —  "That  being  such  a  case,  belonging  to 
the  judicial  power  of  the  Union,  it  was  for  Congress  to 
regulate  and  prescribe  the  remedy,  the  form  of  proceed 
ings,  and  the  mode  arid  extent  in  which  the  judicial 
power  of  the  Union  should  be  called  into  activity." 

He  then  declares  his  full  admission  of  both   these 


485 

propositions.  And  how  does  he  answer  the  first  one, 
which,  at  a  blow,  unseats  him  from  his  usurped  bench? 
He  says,  "  The  counsel  for  the  prisoner  have  insisted 
most  strenuously  on  the  first  of  these  positions,  but 
have  said  nothing  with  regard  to  the  second."  And 
what  need  had  the  counsel  to  say  any  thing  about  the 
second,  the  first  being  admitted  1  The  supreme  court 
had  said,  and  he  acknowledged  it,  that  every  case  like 
the  one  then  before  him  was  a  "  case  arising  under  the 
constitution  of  the  United  States,  within  the  express 
delegation  of  judicial  power  given  by  that  instrument." 
This  was  equivalent  to  saying  that  it  was  a  case  which 
could  not  be  adjudicated  upon  by  a  commissioner,  be 
cause  a  commissioner  is  not  a  judge,  —  is  no  court  nor 
part  of  a  court.  The  plain  statement  of  the  commis 
sioner's  language  is  this :  The  supreme  court  declare 
that  I  have  no  jurisdiction  in  this  case  ;  but  because 
the  counsel  said  nothing  about  another  point  to  be 
found  in  the  opinion  of  the  court,  therefore  I  will  take 
jurisdiction. 

But  again  ;  this  reply  of  the  commissioner,  that  the 
counsel  said  nothing  about  the  second  point,  (when  he 
had  acknowledged  the  validity  of  the  first,  which  was 
fatal,)  is  not  merely  an  evasion  ;  it  is  founded  upon  a 
false  meaning  attributed  by  him  to  the  second  point. 
He  says  the  court  held  that  it  was  "  for  Congress  to 
regulate  and  prescribe  the  remedy,  the  form  of  pro 
ceedings,  and  the  mode  and  extent  in  which  the  judi 
cial  power  of  the  Union  should  be  called  into  activity." 
Suppose  it  was  for  Congress  to  do  this.  Might  they 
not  transcend  their  power  when  doing  it  ?  and  does 
not  his  admission  of  the  first  point  prove  that  they 
have  transcended  their  power  ?  —  the  very  point  then 
in  question.  The  two  things  cannot  stand  together. 
If  the  trial  of  the  issue,  "fugitive  slave  or  not,"  be,  "in 
the  strictest  sense,"  "  within  the  express  delegation  of 
judicial  power  given"  by  the  constitution,  then  this 
41* 


486 

ministerial  commissioner  cannot  exercise  it,  and  Con 
gress  cannot  empower  him  to  exercise  it.  Besides,  the 
decision  of  the  court  was  made  in  1842.  The  law, 
whose  constitutionality  they  had  then  under  discus 
sion,  was  passed  in  1850.  Did  the  court  in  '42  de 
clare,  or  could  they  declare,  that  any  law  thereafter 
passed  by  Congress  on  this  subject  should  be  held  con 
stitutional  ?  Did  their  decision  act  prospectively,  and 
adjudge  a  law  to  be  constitutional,  which  was  to  be 
passed  eight  years  afterwards?  So  far  from  this,  the 
points  then  under  discussion,  —  namely,  the  power  of 
a  commissioner  to  adjudge  a  case  more  important  than 
life  or  death,  and  the  obligation  of  a  commissioner  to 
hear  ex parte  evidence,  and  to  be  concluded  by  it  when 
heard,  —  these  questions  did  not  come  before  the  su 
preme  court  in  '42,  and  have  never  been  before  the 
supreme  court  at  all.  But  because  that  court  had  said, 
years  before,  that  it  belongs  to  Congress  to  prescribe 
the  mode  of  recovering  fugitive  slaves,  therefore,  says 
the  commissioner,  if  Congress  should  vest  this  power 
in  commissioners,  (and  in  slave  traders  or  pirates  just 
as  well,)  it  would  be  valid.  And  because  the  counsel 
did  not  answer  this  point,  the  commissioner  decides 
an  admitted  point,  conclusive  in  their  favor,  against 
them. 

But  this  is  not  all.  After  declaring,  in  t-he  first  part 
of  the  opinion,  his  full  conviction  that  the  delivery  of 
an  alleged  fugitive  comes  within  "  the  express  delega 
tion  of  judicial  power,"  he  uses,  farther  on,  the  follow 
ing  language:  "It  would  seem,"  says  he,  "that  it  only 
remains  to  inquire  whether  the  act  of  1850  authorizes 
or  requires  any  thing  more  than  a  summary  ministerial 
proceeding  in  aid  of  the  right  secured  by  the  constitu 
tion,  namely,  the  right  of  removal."  And  he  holds 
that  it  does  not.  The  act  which,  in  the  first  part  of 
the  opinion,  was  acknowledged  to  belong,  "  in  the 
strictest  sense,"  to  the  "judicial  power,"  has  now 


487 

ceased  to  be  "  any  thing  more  than  a  summary  minis 
terial  proceeding." 

And  again  lie  says,  "I  have  endeavored,  in  the  fore 
going  discussion,  to  show  that  this  is  a  summary  min 
isterial  proceeding,"  &c.  "  If  this  be  so,  and  I  can 
entertain  no  doubt  that  it  is,"  &c.  This  sudden  trans 
migration  from  a  judge  to  an  executioner,  from  one 
who  acknowledged  that  the  delivery  of  an  alleged 
fugitive  is  an  act  of  "judicial  power,"  to  one  who 
holds  that  it  is  NOT  "any  thing  more  than  a  summary 
ministerial  proceeding,"  may  suit  a  disciple  of  Pythag 
oras,  or  the  priests  of  the  Hindoo  religion,  but  it  ill 
becomes  an  expounder  of  American  jurisprudence. 

I  proceed  to  another  point  in  the  commissioner's 
decision,  namely,  the  nature  and  authority  of  "judi 
cial  power ;  "  and  when  I  have  discussed  it,  I  shall 
submit  to  your  good  sense  whether  I  do  him  any  in 
justice  in  saying  that  it  is  most  perspicuously  fallacious 
and  lucidly  absurd. 

"  In  all  governments  formed  upon  the  English 
model,"  says  he,  "there  is  a  certain  class  of  inquiries, 
[powers?]  judicial  in  their  nature,  but  which  are  con 
fided  to  officers  not  constituting  a  part  of  the  judiciary, 
strictly  so  called."  (I  do  not  like  this  substitution  of 
the  word  "inquiries"  for  "powers."  If  any  thing 
tinder  heaven  should  be  called  a  power,  the  prerogative 
of  sending  a  human  being,  presumptively  free,  into 
bondage,  is  surely  one.)  He  then  instances  certain 
officers  in  Great  Britain,  who,  though  not  judges,  per-, 
form,  as  he  says,  certain  judicial  functions.  A  brief 
remark  will  suffice  for  this.  Great  Britain^  having  no 
written  constitution,  the  current  of  its  legislative  enact 
ments  and  its  judicial  decisions  makes  its  constitution. 
If,  then,  it  has  been  the  prevailing  practice  of  that  gov 
ernment  to  confer  any  given  description  of  powers  upon 
any  given  class  of  officers,  then  that  is  what  the  British 
constitution  allows  and  approves. 


488 

But  we  have  a  written  constitution,  and  therefore 
are  not  to  tolerate  a  law,  (as  in  the  case  of  this  Fugi 
tive  Slave  law,)  which  is  repugnant  to  its  fundamental 
provisions.  By  this  constitution,  all  legislative  pow 
ers  therein  granted  are  vested  in  Congress;  executive- 
power  in  a  President,  and  judicial  power  in  the  courts. 
The  constitution  of  Massachusetts  is  equally  explicit. 
It  says,  "In  the  government  of  this  commonwealth  the 
legislative  department  shall  never  exercise  the  execu 
tive  and  judicial  powers,  or  either  of  them  ;  the  execu 
tive  shall  never  exercise  the  legislative  and  judicial 
powers,  or  either  of  them  ;  the  judicial  shall  never  ex 
ercise  the  legislative  and  executive  powers,  or  either 
of  them ;  to  the  end  it  may  be  a  government  of  laws, 
and  not  of  men." 

In  both  these  constitutions,  the  three  functions  of 
government,  namely,  to  legislate,  to  adjudicate,  and  to 
execute,  are  expressly  recognized ;  and  the  whole  of 
their  distinctive  powers  are  lodged  in  separate  depart 
ments.  No  mention  is  made  of  any  hybrid  or  mongrel 
class,  half  judicial  and  half  executive,  or  half  ministe 
rial  and  half  judicial,  or  compounded  of  aliquot  parts 
of  each.  Such  an  officer,  under  either  constitution, 
would  be  a  monster ;  he  would  hold  the  same  relation 
to  their  legitimate  functionaries  that  Caliban  does  to 
the  human  race ;  and,  if  created  for  executing  the  Fu 
gitive  Slave  law,  that  half  devil  and  half  beast  would 
be  the  fitting  prototype. 

The  commissioner  professes  to  have  found  a  class 
of  cases,  both  under  our  state  and  national  constitu 
tions,  where  powers,  "judicial  in  their  nature,  and 
special  in  their  purpose,  may  be  confided  to  the  deter 
mination  of  officers  who  are  not  judges."  On  this 
point  he  has  expended  himself.  Here  lay  the  pressure 
and  travail  of  his  case.  Seeing  that,  in  deciding  the 
great  issue  before  him,  "slave  or  free,"  he  was  exer 
cising  judicial  power,  and  in  ordering  an  armed  force 


489 

to  convoy  the  victim  to  his  house  of  bondage  he  was 
exercising  ministerial  or  executive  power,  (thus  blend 
ing  the  functions  which  both  constitutions  have  sepa 
rated,)  the  commissioner  felt  that  he  must  find  some 
analogy  or  some  precedent  to  cover  up  this  obvious 
violation  of  all  principle,  or  his  argument  was  in  ruins. 
It  is  in  ruins  ;  for  he  has  found  no  such  precedent,  and 
cannot  find  any. 

The  instances  he  cites  from  Massachusetts  are, — 
1.  Sheriffs,  who  may  preside  over  juries  when  assessing 
damages  for  laying  out  highways,  and  may  decide  such 
questions  of  law  as  arise  on  the  trial ;  2.  Auditors, 
who  may  examine  vouchers  and  state  accounts  be 
tween  parties,  and  make  report  thereof  to  the  court ; 
3.  Commissioners  of  insolvency,  appointed  to  dis 
tribute  insolvent  estates ;  and,  4.  County  commission 
ers,  who  lay  out  highways. 

Now,  nothing  can  be  clearer  than  that,  in  no  one  of 
these  cases  does  the  officer  named  exercise  "judicial 
power."  Indisputably,  universally,  and  necessarily,  by 
force  of  the  phrase  itself,  the  term  "judicial  power" 
embraces  the  idea  of  a  power  whose  decision  can  be 
enforced  in  invitum ;  tfiat  is,  against  an  unwilling, 
contesting,  resisting  party.  The  sublime  power  of  a 
court  becomes  nothingness,  and  is  ridiculous,  if  its  de 
crees  cannot  be  executed  to  the  very  death  of  the  party 
against  whom  they  are  made.  For  this  purpose,  they 
are  backed  by  all  the  civil  power  of  the  state  ;  and 
should  this  prove  insufficient,  they  are  backed  by  all 
the  military  power  of  the  state ;  and,  even  beyond 
this,  by  the  whole  military  and  naval  power  of  the 
United  States.  Without  this,  judges  are  but  puppets, 
or  no  better  than  "men  in  buckram."  "Judicial  pow 
er"  does  not  consist  in  a  sheriff's  presiding  over  a  jury, 
nor  in  an  auditor's  casting  up  accounts,  nor  in  a  com 
missioner's  ciphering  out  the  dividends  of  an  insol 
vent's  estate,  nor  in  county  commissioners'  laying  out 


490 

roads  ;  but  it  consists  in  entering  up  a  judgment  which 
has  the  armories  at  Springfield  and  Harper's  Ferry, 
which  has  the  standing  army  and  militia  of  the  United 
States,  which  has  fifty  line-of-battle  ships,  which  has 
the  treasury  of  the  nation,  to  back  it,  and  to  visit  with 
death  one  man,  a  thousand  men,  or  a  hundred  thou 
sand  men,  if  need  be,  who  shall  confront  it  with  re 
sistance. 

Look,  fellow-citizens,  at  this  wretched  sophistry. 
The  sheriff  must  make  return  of  the  verdict  of  the 
jury  to  the  court  of  common  pleas, — which  is  a 
COURT,  —  and  if  either  party  suggests  good  grounds  of 
dissatisfaction,  the  whole  proceeding  is  a  nullity,  and 
the  investigation  must  be  made  again ;  and  again  and 
again,  and  ten  times  again,  until  every  act  and  letter 
of  it  become  unexceptionable.  The  auditor  must 
make  his  report  to  the  court  that  appointed  him,  and 
if  the  court  see  cause,  they  set  aside  both  it  and  him. 
The  acts  of  the  commissioners  of  insolvency  derive 
all  their  validity  from  the  consent  of  the  parties,  or 
from  the  judgment  of  a  court,  which  substitutes  the 
force  of  law  for  consent.  And  no  act  of  the  county 
commissioners,  in  taking  a  man's  land,  is  worth  the 
paper  it  is  written  on,  until  the  verdict  of  the  jury  is 
returned  to  the  court  of  common  pleas,  and  there  for 
mally  accepted  and  recorded.  Nay,  every  intelligent 
farmer  in  the  country  knows  the  fact,  that  though  the 
commissioners  have  laid  out  a  new  road,  or  ordered  an 
old  one  to  be  shut  up,  still,  if  a  party,  feeling  himself 
aggrieved,  demands  a  jury,  the  former  cannot  be  worked, 
nor  the  latter  closed,  until  the  court  of  common  pleas 
shall  have  passed  upon  the  proceeding  and  ratified  it.* 

*  I  object  to  Mr.  Curtis' s  calling  the  county  commissioners  "  the 
court  of  county  commissioners."  They  are  nowhere  so  called  in  the 
act  creating  them,  or  in  the  act  defining  their  duties.  On  the  contra 
ry,  they  are  expressly  contradistinguished  from  the  "  court  of  common 
picas,"  which  is  a  court.  This  may  have  been  an  inadvertence,  but 
it  shows  how  he  mistook  the  nature  of  their  powers. 


491 

If,  however,  in  all  the  above  cases,  the  parties  in  in 
terest  consent  to  the  acts  of  sheriff,  auditor,  or  commis 
sioner,  then  those  acts  become  binding,  by  virtue  of 
such  consent.  The  party  consenting  is  afterwards 
estopped  from  questioning  them.  But  they  derive  no 
authority  from  any  "judicial  power"  vested  in  the 
officers  performing  them.  We  have  a  case  more  ex 
actly  in  point,  and  better  illustrating  the  principle,  in 
the  fourth  section  of  the  ninety-seventh  chapter  of  our 
Revised  Statutes,  where  it  is  provided,  that  "  in  actions 
upon  promissory  notes  and  other  contracts,  where  the 
amount  due  appears  to  be  undisputed,  the  debt  or  darn- 
ages  may  be  assessed  and  ascertained  by  the  clerk, 
either  under  a  general  order  of  the  court,  or  by  a  special 
reference  of  the  case  to  him  ;  and  the  judgment,  in 
either  case,  shall  be  entered  in  the  same  form  as  if  it 
had  been  awarded  by  the  court,  on  an  assessment  or 
computation  made  by  themselves."  Yet  who  will 
pretend  that  this  act  of  the  clerk,  which  is  performed 
only  where  there  is  no  dispute  between  the  parties, 
emanates  from  any  "judicial  power"  in  that  officer? 

The  instances  cited  under  the  United  States  consti 
tution  have,  if  possible,  still  less  plausibility.  The 
commissioners  appointed  by  the  courts  can  initiate 
certain  proceedings,  by  holding  parties  to  trial,  &c.,  but 
this  function  is  no  more  judicial  than  that  of  the  grand 
jury  in  finding  an  indictment.  It  is  a  preliminary  to 
a  judicial  act,  but  not  such  an  act.  The  commission 
ers  are  not  even  required  to  be  sworn,  and,  in  many 
instances,  it  is  known  they  are  not  sworn. 

So  of  the  case  of  which  so  much  is  attempted  to  be 
made,  —  that  of  the  commissioner  of  patents.  Any 
party  feeling  himself  aggrieved  by  any  of  his  decisions 
can  appeal  directly  to  the  courts  of  the  United  States 
for  redress. 

Compare  all  this  with  analogous  instances  in  the 
legislative  department  of  government.  The  legisla- 


492 

tures  of  most  of  the  states  have  created  commissions  to 
revise  their  codes  of  statute  law.  Massachusetts  has 
had  several  such.  Our  revised  statutes  are  a  monu 
ment  of  the  labor  of  one  of  these  commissions.  But 
were  they  legislators  ?  Was  their  proposed  code  of  any 
validity  until  enacted  by  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives  ?  Just  as  much  as  the  acts  of  sheriff, 
auditor,  or  commissioners  of  the  different  kinds,  were 
acts  of  judicial  power,  and  no  more.  Are  the  select 
men  of  our  towns  legislators,  because  they  decide,  in 
the  first  instance,  who  are  elected  as  members  of  our 
House  of  Representatives  ?  Are  our  governor  and 
council  legislators,  in  both  the  state  and  national  gov 
ernments,  because,  on  an  examination  of  votes  trans 
mitted  to  them  by  the  selectmen,  they  issue  certificates 
of  election  to  our  state  senators  and  to  the  members  of 
Congress  elect  ?  Do  they  exercise  any  part  of  that 
power  which  makes  "  each  house  the  judge  of  the 
elections,  returns,  and  qualification  of  its  own  mem 
bers  "  ?  Just  as  much,  I  reply,  as  sheriff,  auditor, 
commissioner,  or  clerk,  does  of  "judicial  power." 
They  perform  acts  preliminary  or  antecedent  to  legis 
lation,  but  no  legislative  act  ;  just  as  the  above-named 
classes  of  officers  perform  acts  preliminary  or  antece 
dent  to  judicial  decisions,  but  never,  in  any  case,  the 
authoritative  and  compulsory  judicial  act  itself. 

The  strength,  or  rather,  the  weakness,  of  the  com 
missioner's  argument,  on  this  point,  consists  in  the 
obtrusive,  projecting,  self-shouting  fallacy  of  using 
the  exact,  technical,  constitutional  phrase,  "judicial 
power,"  as  synonymous  with  the  popular  expression, 
"  a  judicious  act"  or  "  the  exercise  of  judgment" 
Officers  of  all  kinds  exercise  "judicial  power,"  in  this 
broad  and  popular  sense  of  the  phrase  ;  that  is,  they 
perform  acts  requiring  good  judgment.  Umpires,  arbi 
trators,  and  referees  perform  acts  precisely  like  those 
of  judges,  but  they  cannot  put  the  whole  physical 


strength  of  the  government  in  motion  to  enforce  tliem. 
So  sheriffs  decide  upon  the  identity  of  the  party  named 
in  their  precepts ;  postmasters,  to  whom  they  shall  de 
liver  letters,  and  what  postage  they  shall  demand  ;  cus 
tom-house  officers,  upon  the  nature  and  value  of  dutia 
ble  goods ;  assessors,  in  levying  taxes ;  parents  and 
teachers,  on  matters  of  discipline,  &,c.,  &c.  In  a  pop 
ular  sense,  they  may  all  be  said  to  exercise  judicial 
power ;  but  no  particle  of  that  power  which,  by  the 
fundamental  law  of  our  government,  is  vested  in  the 
"  courts."  Their  acts  are  all  examinable  by  the  courts. 
They  cannot  set  the  arm  of  the  government  in  motion 
to  execute  their  judgments.  Indeed,  the  whole  argu 
ment  of  the  commissioner  on  this  point  is  but  a  play 
upon  words.  It  is  only  a  trick  of  verbal  legerdemain. 
The  premises  he  starts  with  are  unknown  to  the  con 
stitution,  and  the  conclusion  he  comes  to  is  abhorrent 
to  humanity. 

Does  not  every  body  see  that,  in  order  to  make  the 
cases  parallel,  in  order  to  obtain  any  legitimate  ground 
of  comparison  between  them,  Sims  should  have  had 
the  same  power  of  appealing  from  the  commissioner's 
decision,  to  a  court,  which  power  of  appeal  belongs 
of  right  to  a  party  who  feels  aggrieved  by  the  act  of 
sheriff,  auditor,  or  commissioner  ;  and  that  the  certifi 
cate  should  bind  him  only  by  his  voluntary  assent? 

But  there  is  another  point  in  the  commissioner's 
opinion  which  is  worthy  to  be  companion  to  this.  I 
proceed  to  consider  it. 

He  repeats,  and  keeps  repeating,  that  his  decision, 
dooming  Sims  to  all  the  horrors  of  bondage,  and  put 
ting  him  under  the  control  of  a  man  who  claims  title 
to  his  body  and  his  soul,  to  be  carried  into  a  juris 
diction  where  such  titles  are  acknowledged,  is  not 
"  FINAL."  It  is  not  final,  he  says,  because  if  Sims  be 
free,  he  may  extort  that  freedom  from  the  laws  of 
Georgia  which  has  been  denied  to  him  by  the  laws  of 
42 


494 

Massachusetts :  that  is,  if  the  judgment  which  the 
commissioner  is  giving  against  a  free  man,  in  a  free 
state,  is  a  false  judgment,  he  may  go  to  a  slave  state 
to  obtain  redress,  —  which  is  ten  thousand  times  worse 
than  if  a  jury,  in  a  capital  case,  should  say,  We  may  find 
this  prisoner  guilty;  for  if  he  be  wrongfully  hanged, 
God.  will  make  him  amends. 

Besides  the  inhumanity  of  this  position,  it  contains 
a  fallacy  which  is  twin-brother  to  the  one  just  consid 
ered.  The  judicial  word,  " final j"  has  a  legal,  tech 
nical,  and  certain  meaning.  In  the  courts,  arid  in  the 
law  books,  it  means  the  last  judgment  in  a  judicial 
proceeding.  It  means  that  judgment  from  which  a 
party  cannot  appeal,  though  he  may  ever  so  much  de 
sire  it ;  or  it  means  that  judgment,  after  which,  how 
ever  dissatisfied  the  party  may  be,  he  cannot  have  his 
cause  retried  or  reheard  by  a  court,  but  is  compelled  to 
submit. 

"  Final  judgments,"  says  Blackstone,  "  are  such  as 
at  once  put  an  end  to  the  action."  This  is  a  precise 
description  of  the  judgment  rendered  by  the  commis 
sioner  against  Sims.  That  victim  resisted  by  prayers 
and  tears,  by  the  subduing  eloquence  of  his  counsel, 
and  by  their  irresistible  logic,  which  the  commissioner 
has  never  yet  begun  to  answer.  But  the  self-consti 
tuted  judge  was  inexorable.  Though  he  knew  that, 
according  to  the  terms  of  the  Fugitive  Law,  there  was 
no  escape  from  his  decision  ;  though  he  knew  that  his 
certificate  was  to  protect  the  man-hunter  from  all  "mol 
estation  by  any  process  issued  by  any  court,  judge, 
magistrate,  or  other  person  whomsoever,"  yet,  like 
Pilate,  he  washes  his  hands  and  says,  "  I  am  innocent 
of  this  man's  blood,  see  ye  to  it :  "  for  my  decision  is 
not  "  final."  And  why  ?  Because,  in  another  juris 
diction,  in  another  suit,  where  the  plaintiff  is  to  be 
defendant,  and  the  defendant  plaintiff,  or  perhaps 
against  another  party  ;  in  a  place,  too,  where  all  the 


495 

common-law  presumptions  in  favor  of  freedom  are  re 
versed ;  where  the  law  is  different,  and  the  rules  of 
evidence  are  different :  and  where  the  respondent  him 
self  is  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  chattel  and  a  brute, 
a  decision,  at  some  indefinite  future  period,  may  be  had 
that  the  man,  whom  the  commissioner  now  declares  to 
be  a  slave,  is  free,  and  has  always  been  so.  Because 
of  this  future  and  contingent  event,  because  of  this  al 
most  impossible  possibility,  the  commissioner's  decision 
is  not  final.  I  deny  this.  The  decision  is  final,  be 
cause,  as  Blackstone  says,  it  "  at  once  puts  an  end  to 
the  action."  But  let  us  test  the  question,  not  only  by 
its  legal  definition,  but  by  its  actual  effects.  It  decides 
that  Sims  is  a  slave.  It  decides  that  he  owes  service 
to  James  Potter.  It  decides  that  Potter  and  his  heirs 
and  assigns  forever  are  the  lawful  owners  of  Sims  and 
the  heirs  of  his  bondage  forever  j  and  when  Sims  and 
his  posterity  shall  be  scourged,  torn,  flayed,  mutilated, 
starved,  the  only  consolation  which  the  commissioner 
has  for  him  and  them  is,  Shall  the  clay  say  to  the 
Potter  that  fashioneth  it,  What  makest  thou  ?  It  not 
only  decides  that  Sims  is  a  slave,  and  that  he  shall  be 
sent  to  Georgia,  but  it  sends  familiars,  like  those  which 
once  disgraced  even  the  purlieus  of  the  Inquisition,  to 
see  that  the  devilish  deed  is  done. 

The  whole  argument  of  the  commissioner,  that  this 
act  of  his  is  not  final,  is  founded  on  a  quibble,  —  on 
the  use  of  the  legal  word  "  final,"  as  though  it  were 
synonymous  with  the  popular  word  eternal  or  perpetual. 
The  slavery  of  Sims  may  not  be  eternal  or  perpetual ; 
because,  by  some  miracle  of  God,  or  otherwise,  he  may 
escape.  But  in  a  technical  and  juridical  sense  the  de 
cision  of  the  commissioner  is  final ;  and  he  might  as 
well  doom  a  man  to  be  hurled  from  the  Tarpeian  rock, 
and  say  that  the  act  is  not  final,  because  he  only  com 
mits  the  victim  to  the  laws  of  gravitation,  as  he  has 
committed  Sims  to  the  laws  of  Georgia. 


496 

If  by  any  possibility  this  doctrine,  that  the  decision 
is  not  final,  could  be  for  a  moment  sustained,  then  I 
will  submit  a  case  with  which  to  compare  it. 

The  constitution  says,  "  No  state  shall  pass  any  law 
impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts."  Here  we  have 
a  constitutional  basis,  —  the  same  as  for  the  reclama 
tion  of  fugitive  slaves.  Some  states  have  passed  laws 
impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts,  as  the  stop-laws 
of  Kentucky,  and  so  forth.  Suppose  a  Massachusetts 
creditor  to  claim  to  have  a  Kentucky  debtor,  whose 
contract  has  been  so  impaired.  Could  Congress,  in 
order  to  give  efficacy  to  this  constitutional  provision, 
authorize  this  pretended  creditor  to  go  to  Kentucky, 
seize  enough  of  the  alleged  debtor's  property  to  satisfy 
the  alleged  debt,  and  carry  it  home,  or  have  it  ordered 
home  by  a  magistrate,  under  some  "  summary  "  pro 
cess,  which,  on  its  face,  excludes  the  trial  by  jury  ; 
and  thereby  debar  the  supposed  defendant  of  all  right 
under  that  provision  of  the  constitution  which  gives  a 
jury  trial  when  the  value  in  controversy  exceeds 
twenty  dollars  ?  And  could  the  Kentucky  magistrate, 
in  the  supposed  case,  deny  the  jury  trial  on  the  ground 
that  the  proceeding  before  him  was  not  "  final,"  be 
cause  the  defendant  might  follow  the  plaintiff  to  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  there  institute  an  action  of  replevin, 
trespass,  or  trover,  to  try,  before  a  jury  of  the  country, 
the  right  of  the  former  plaintiff  to  the  property  he  had 
seized  ? 

The  commissioner  says  much  in  different  places, 
with  the  apparent  hope  of  showing  that  the  proceeding 
before  him  was  only  for  what  he  calls  a  "  limited  and 
special  purpose,"  namely,  "  removal." 

I  confess  myself  unable  to  understand  why  the  cer 
tificate  of  the  commissioner  is  any  more  restricted  to  a 
limited  and  special  purpose  than  any  judicial  act,  sen 
tence,  or  execution,  of  any  court  whatever.  The  com 
missioner  declares  a  prima  facie  freeman  to  be  a  slave. 


497 

He  declares  that  James  Potter  owns  Thomas  Sims, 
and  the  posterity  in  his  loins  forever;  or  that  Thomas 
Sims  and  his  posterity  forever,  owe  service  to  James 
Potter  and  his  heirs  and  assigns  forever.  Does  this 
" forever"  limit  the  meaning  of  the  certificate,  as  to 
time  ?  If  so,  then  a  general  or  unlimited  award  or 
execution,  against  Sims,  as  contradistinguished  from 
this  limited  and  special  one,  must  extend  and  run  into 
the  next  world.  When  our  courts  decide  that  one 
man  owes  another  man  money,  they  award  execution 
against  his  property,  with  certain  humane  exemptions 
as  to  clothes,  furniture,  provisions,  school  books,  Bible, 
&c.  But  when  this  commissioner  decided  that  Sims 
owed  Potter  service,  he  awarded  a  certificate  against 
the  adjudged  debtor,  which  made  no  exemption  what 
ever  ;  but  included  property,  clothes,  books,  skin, 
flesh,  heart,  brain,  soul,  and  all  that  was  in  him,  or  of 
him,  with  all  appurtenances  and  appendages,  present 
emblements,  and  future  increase.  Yet,  according  to 
the  commissioner,  the  first  judgment  is  a  common  or 
general  one  ;  the  last  "  special  and  limited."  Under 
our  old  laws,  (and  under  the  laws  of  some  states  yet,) 
courts  could  sentence  offenders  to  the  barbarous  pun 
ishment  of  flogging.  But  they  were  and  are  bound 
to  specify  the  number  of  lashes.  This  is  general. 
The  commissioner  delivers  over  a  slave  to  be  flogged 
by  his  master,  ad  libitum,  and  in  perpetuum,  to  be 
flogged  in  his  own  person,  and  to  be  flogged  in  the 
persons  of  his  children,  and  their  posterity,  in  secMla 
seculorum.  The  defined  flogging  of  thirty-nine,  or 
such  other  number  of  lashes  as  can  be  computed,  the 
commissioner  calls  general  or  indefinite.  But  the 
incomputable  number  of  lashes  ;  the  vast,  unknown, 
algebraic  quantity ;  the  infinite  series  ;  that  which 
Newton  with  all  his  mathematics  could  not  compass, 
nor  Rosse  with  his  telescope  see  the  end  of,  —  that  is 
"  special  and  limited."  The  taking  of  a  limited 
42* 


498 

amount  of  a  man's  property,  carefully  set  down  in 
dollars  and  cents,  both  in  the  text  and  in  the  margin 
of  the  execution,  the  commissioner  calls  a  general 
purpose.  But  the  robbing  of  a  man,  not  only  of  all 
he  has  earned,  but  of  all  his  capabilities  of  earning  as 
long  as  he  breathes,  with  full  authority  to  do  the  same 
thing  to  his  posterity  to  the  latest  generation,  this  is 
"special  and  limited."  To  sentence  a  man  to  be 
hanged  by  the  neck  till  he  be  dead,  though  with 
privilege  of  priest,  prayer  book,  and  Bible,  —  this,  too, 
is  general  and  proper  ;  though  in  Massachusetts  it  can 
be  done  only  by  a  majority  of  the  judges  of  the 
supreme  court.  But  to  send  a  man  to  be  worked  to 
death  in  five  years  on  a  sugar  plantation,  where  his 
being  taught  to  read  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  is  a 
felony,  —  this  is  "special  and  limited,"  and  so  may  be 
done  by  any  hireling  commissioner  who  will  do  what 
Judas  did  for  one  third  part  of  his  silver  pieces. 

Fellow-citizens,  I  submit  to  any  man,  clerical,  legal, 
or  lay,  who  is  capable  of  appreciating  moral  distinc 
tions,  whether  this  whole  doctrine,  about  delivering  a 
man  up  as  a  slave,  and  putting  him  bodily  into  the 
hands  of  the  claimant,  and  thrusting  him  into  slave 
jurisdiction,  under  the  pretext  that  it  is  done  only  for 
the  special  and  limited  purpose  of  removal,  be  not 
atrocious.  It  is  more  like  a  forgery  than  an  argument. 
Assumed  learning  and  logic  never  practised  a  greater 
imposition  upon  themselves,  nor  attempted  a  greater 
one  upon  others,  than  when  they  fabricated  this  no 
tion,  that  adjudging  a  man  to  be  a  slave,  stripping  him 
of  his  liberam  legem,  that  is,  of  all  his  rights  and 
immunities  as  a  citizen,  and  delivering  him  into  actual 
bondage,  is  "  for  a  special  and  limited  purpose  of 
removal,"  —  only  to  give  him  a  voyage,  or  a  pleasure 
excursion  of  a  few  hundred  miles,  —  out,  —  but  not 
back.  When  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  claiming  to 
hold  the  keys  of  heaven,  and  to  have  death  and  hell 


499 

for  his  ministers,  excommunicated  whole  sects  and 
peoples,  and  delivered  them  over  to  the  great  soul- 
hunter,  and  sent  his  familiars  with  them  to  see  that 
the  "claimant"  suffered  no  "molestation"  while  con 
veying  them  to  the  bottomless  pit,  he  might  as  well 
have  said  that  he  did  it  only  for  a  "  special  and  limited 
purpose."  It  was  not  damnation,  it  was  only  "re 
moval."  And  do  you  suppose  the  devil,  could  he 
have  got  possession  of  those  outcast  souls,  would  have 
cared  any  more  under  what  pretence  the  great  pontiff 
commissioner  made  the  delivery,  than  does  the  south 
ern  slaveholder,  when  he  gets  possession  of  a  man  of 
whom  he  can  make  a  slave  ? 

This  fallacy  about  the  "special  and  limited  purpose 
of  removal "  did  not  originate  with  Mr.  Commissioner 
Curtis.  I  exculpate  him  from  that  guilt.  He  only 
adopted  it  and  gave  it  a  "  bad  eminence  "  by  making 
it,  in  part,  the  basis  of  his  decision.  But  henceforth 
let  the  people  brand  it.  Let  them  classify  it  and  de 
nounce  it,  and  detest  it,  as  belonging  to  that  impious 
and  blasphemous  kind  of  arguments  by  which  our  first 
parents  were  beguiled,  when  Satan  told  them  that, 
though  they  sinned  against  God,  they  should  not 
die  ;  or  by  which  Mr.  Webster  cajoled  and  cozened 
so  many  honest  men,  when  he  assured  them,  that 
though  they  should  violate  the  moral  law,  by  opening 
all  the  territories  to  slavery,  yet  some  physical  law  of 
geography  or  the  weather  would  avert  the  penalties. 

In  the  absence  of  all  decent  materials  for  an  argument, 
the  commissioner  resorts  to  that  ten  times  exploded  po 
sition,  that  there  is  an  analogy  between  fugitives  from 
justice  and  fugitives  from  service.  Where  could  he 
find  a  bandage  of  prejudice  thick  enough  to  blind  him 
to  the  distinction,  that  the  condition  of  delivering  up 
the  former  is  that  he  be  charged  with  crime,  while  the 
condition  of  delivering  up  the  latter  is  that  he  be  held 
to  labor,  and  that  he  owes  service  ?  How  can  it  be 


500 

said  that  a  man  owes  service,  until  the  fact  of  the 
indebtedness  be  proved  ?  Such  reasonable  suspicion 
of  guilt  as  justifies  a  grand  jury  in  finding  a  bill  of 
indictment  is  sufficient  in  the  one  case,  but  such  posi 
tive  proof  as  would  require  the  court  to  enter  up  judg 
ment  and  award  execution  is  absolutely  necessary  in 
the  other.  The  government  demanding  a  fugitive 
from  justice  seeks  possession  of  him  for  a  trial,  before 
a  court  and  jury,  of  the  question  of  criminality  ;  but 
the  claimant  of  an  alleged  fugitive  from  service  seeks 
possession  of  him  to  avoid  a  trial,  before  a  court  and 
jnry,  of  the  question  of  freedom.  The  constitution 
requires  that  every  person  accused  of  crime  shall  be 
tried  in  the  state  and  district  where  the  crime  shall 
be  charged  to  have  been  committed  ;  but  it  makes  no 
such  provision  in  regard  to  the  alleged  fugitive  from 
service ;  and  this  injunction  in  the  one  case,  and 
omission  in  the  other,  create  the  irresistible  inference, 
that  there  is  a  difference  between  them,  and  that  the 
alleged  fugitive  from  service,  according  to  all  the  analo 
gies  of  the  common  law,  is  to  be  tried  where  he  is  found. 

But  there  is  one  distinction  which  is  broad  enough 
and  luminous  enough  to  make  a  blind  man  see  it.  An 
alleged  fugitive  from  justice  is  not  adjudged  to  be  a 
criminal  previous  to  delivery,  nor  is  he  made  a  crim 
inal,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  by  the  act  of  delivery. 
But  the  alleged  fugitive  from  service  is  adjudged  a 
slave,  and  made  a  slave  by  the  certificate  of  the  com 
missioner.  The  state  receiving  a  fugitive  from  justice 
does  not  proceed  forthwith  to  punish  him.  But  the 
receiver  of  an  alleged  fugitive  from  service  owns  him, 
and  may  proceed  to  control  him,  and  beat  him,  and  rob 
him,  and  starve  him,  on  the  very  instant  that  the 
commissioner  puts  the  certificate  into  his  hands.  If 
any  one  cannot  see  this  distinction,  no  act  of  the 
moral  oculist  can  give  him  sight. 

The/  papers  inform  us  that  when  Sims  was  landed 


601 

in  Savannah,  he  was  taken  to  jail  and  received  the 
"usual  reprimand"  which,  as  every  body  knows,  is 
M  tlayed  and  blood-streaming  back.  By  whose  certifi 
cate  was  the  nine-thonged  cat  laid  on  ?  Had  he  been 
a  murderer  or  a  pirate,  would  excoriation  have  been 
the  first  act  of  welcome  on  his  arrival  ?  No  !  Mur 
derers  and  pirates  would  have  had  a  jury.  The  law 
is  beneficent  to  them  ;  it  saves  its  terrors  for  the  slave. 
A  man  who  will  not  see  such  a  distinction  as  this, 
would  excite  no  pity  should  he  be  made  to  feel  it. 

In  treating  this  topic,  the  commissioner  makes  one 
assertion  that  seems  insane.  He  says  that,  to  authorize 
the  delivery  of  a  fugitive  from  justice,  in  order  to  his 
removal,  "it  must  be  proved  that  he  has  committed  a 
crime."  Such  a  declaration  was  never  made  before, 
and  I  do  not  believe  it  will  be  ever  made  again.  You 
could  not  find  a  lawyer  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's 
line  who  would  venture  to  say  this.  Every  body 
knows  that  the  supposed  criminal  needs  only  to  be 
charged  with  crime.  It  is  the  alleged  slave  who  must 
be  proved  to  be  held  to  service  before  he  can  be  consti 
tutionally  surrendered.  But  as  though  this  was  not 
absurd  enough,  the  commissioner  goes  on  to  say,  that 
though  the  alleged  fugitive  from  justice  must  be 
proved,  in  the  place  where  he  is  taken,  "  to  have 
committed  a  crime,"  yet,  after  his  removal,  he  must 
be  proved  again  to  have  committed  it.  How  can  a 
man  be  proved,  in  any  legal  way,  to  have  committed 
a  crime,  without  being  confronted  with  the  witnesses 
against  him  ?  Why,  after  having  been  so  proved,  is 
he  put  upon  trial  again  ? 

As  to  all  the  commissioner  says  in  denial  of  the 
right  of  trial  by  jury,  I  shall  make  but  one  or  two 
remarks.  I  have  argued  that  question  elsewhere  : 
and,  until  I  see  some  answer  to  that  argument,  I  have 
no  occasion  for  repetition  or  corroboration  of  it.  After 
using  the  word  "person"  some  twenty  times,  to  sig- 


502 

nify  the  President  of  the  United  States,  electors,  sen 
ators,  representatives,  United  States  officers,  Indians, 
Africans,  &c.,  the  constitution  declares  that  "no  per 
son  shall  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  property, 
without  due  process  of  law  ;  "  —this  "due  process  of 
law  "  meaning  trial  by  jury.  This  is  one  fact.  Adam 
Gibson,  Henry  Long,  Thomas  Sims,  and  many  others, 
some  of  them  now  acknowledged  on  all  hands  to  have 
been  free,  have  been  sent  into  slavery  without  this 
trial.  This  is  another  fact.  Now  put  these  two  facts 
together.  No  man  shall  be  deprived  of  liberty  or 
property,  except  by  the  jury  trial.  These  men  have 
been  deprived  of  liberty  and  property  without  the 
jury  trial.  These  are  the  two  ends.  Now  fill  up  the 
space  between  them  with  what  you  please,  and  call  it 
argument,  law,  gospel,  or  what  you  will,  every  body 
must  see  that  it  is  nothing,  and  can  be  nothing  but 
Mephistophiles'  jugglery.  I  dismiss  this  point  with  a 
single  proposition  :  In  Massachusetts,  we  know  no 
legal  distinction  founded  on  color.  Through  all  the 
gradations,  from  the  person  who  has  the  preternatural 
whiteness  of  an  Albino  to  one  whom  you  can  see  in  the 
darkest  midnight,  because  he  is  so  solid  black,  —  all, 
all,  under  our  constitution  and  laws,  are  alike  freemen, 
or  alike  slaves.  Notwithstanding  the  commissioner's 
decision  makes  us  all  slaves,  yet  I  maintain  that,  in 
the  eye  of  the  law,  we  are  all  free.  How  then  can 
any  one  of  us  freemen  be  robbed  of  liberty  and  prop 
erty,  and  turned  into  a  slave,  but  by  freeman's  proof, 
-that  is,  trial  by  jury?  I  acknowledge  that  after 
we  have  been  proved  to  be  slaves  by  freeman's  proof, 
then  all  the  unutterable  consequences  of  slavery  fol 
low,  of  course  ;  just  as  when  a  man  has  been  proved 
to  be  a  murderer,  the  consequences  of  murder  follow. 
But  UNTIL,  mark  this,  UNTIL  a  man  has  been  proved 
to  be  a  slave  by  freeman's  proof,  he  remains  legally 
free.  And  a  magistrate  who  takes  jurisdiction  of  a 


503 

proceeding  by  which  a  man  may  be  deprived  of  liberty 
or  property,  without  freeman's  proof,  prejudges  his  vic 
tim,  when  he  allows  the  first  witness  to  be  called,  or  the 
first  paper  to  be  read  ;  and  he  might  just  as  well  do 
it,  in  a  case  of  "  life,"  as  in  a  case  of  "liberty  and 
property." 

The  next  position  of  the  commissioner  which  I 
shall  notice  relates  to  the  right  of  Congress  to  make 
use  of  state  courts  to  execute  United  States  laws. 

Now  we  have  the  express  authority  of  the  supreme 
court  of  the  United  States  for  saying  that  "Congress 
cannot  vest  any  portion  of  the  judicial  power  of  the 
United  States,  except  in  courts  ordained  and  estab 
lished  by  itself."  —  Martin  vs.  Hunter's  Lessee,  1 
Wheaton,  330.  "  The  whole  judicial  power  of  the 
United  States  should  be,  at  all  times,  vested  in  some 
courts  created  under  its  authority."  —  Ib.  331.  "The 
jurisdiction  over  such  cases,  [cases  arising  under  tho 
constitution,  laws,  and  treaties  of  the  United  States,] 
could  not  exist  in  the  state  courts  previous  to  the 
adoption  of  the  constitution,  and  it  could  not  after 
wards  be  directly  conferred  on  them  ;  for  the  consti 
tution  expressly  requires  the  judicial  power  to  be 
vested  in  courts  ordained  and  established  by  the  United 
States."  —  Ib.  335.  But  the  commissioner  refers  to  a 
passage  in  Prigg's  case,  in  which  it  is  said  that  "  while 

a  difference  of  opinion  exists whether  state 

magistrates  are  bound  to  act  under  it,  [a  law  of  Con 
gress,]  none  is  entertained  by  the  court,  that  state 
magistrates  may,  if  they  choose,  exercise  the  authority, 
unless  prohibited  by  state  legislation." 

Waiving  all  exceptions  to  this  doctrine,  the  utmost 
that  can  be  made  of  it  is  this  :  that  state  magistrates 
may  execute  a  law  of  Congress,  unless  forbidden  by  a 
law  of  their  state  ;  but  when  so  forbidden,  they  can 
not  ;  and  Congress  can  neither  compel  them  to  do  so, 
nor  annul  a  prohibitory  law  of  the  state,  by  giving 


504 

validity  to  the  act  of  the  magistrate,  performed  in 
violation  of  the  state  law.  Now  mark  the  non  sc- 
quitur  of  the  commissioner's  logic.  See  how  his 
premises  belong  to  one  subject,  and  his  conclusion  to 
another.  Because  a  Massachusetts  magistrate  may 
execute  a  law  of  Congress,  unless  the  Massachusetts 
legislature  forbid  him,  but  if  so  forbidden  he  can  no 
longer  do  it,  therefore,  when  the  Massachusetts  legisla 
ture  has  so  forbidden  him,  Congress  may  send  the 
magistrates  of  Georgia,  or  of  any  other  state,  into  Mas 
sachusetts,  to  do  what  our  own  state  had  forbidden  our 
own  magistrates  to  do.  I  say  "  send  the  magistrates 
of  Georgia  here ;  "  because  Congress  may  just  as  well, 
and  even  better  for  us,  authorize  the  magistrates  of 
any  state  in  the  Union  to  come  here,  set  up  courts, 
and  pass  sentences  which  shall  convey  our  citizens 
into  bondage,  as  to  stay  at  home  and  make  records, 
which,  when  brought  here,  shall  have  the  same  effect. 
This,  then,  is  the  law-logic  of  the  commissioner  :  Be 
cause  a  Massachusetts  magistrate  may  aid  in  reclaim 
ing  an  alleged  fugitive  on  Massachusetts  ground, 
unless  forbidden  by  his  state,  yet,  if  so  forbidden,  then 
the  legislatures  of  fifteen  slave  states  may  send  their 
magistrates,  or  the  acts  of  their  magistrates  here,  to  do 
the  same  thing.  The  state  might  prevent  its  own 
magistrates  from  aiding  in  this  nefarious  work,  but 
this  would  be  of  no  avail,  for  any  one,  or  all,  of  fif 
teen  sets  of  slave  state  magistrates  may  come  and  do 
the  forbidden  act. 

Pierpont  Edwards  once  said  of  a  clergyman,  that  if 
his  text  had  a  contagious  disease,  the  sermon  would 
not  catch  it  j  and  a  blind  man,  being  asked  to  describe 
his  conception  of  color,  compared  it  to  a  clap  of  thun 
der.  But  all  their  ideas  were  coherent  and  homoge 
neous  compared  with  those  premises  and  conclusions 
of  the  commissioner,  by  which  the  State  Rights'  doc 
trine  is  expounded  to  mean,  the  right  of  one  state  to 


505 

send  its  magistrates  into  another  state,  to  do  what'  the 
latter  has  lawfully  prohibited  its  own  magistrates  from 
doing.  South  Carolina  never  claimed  so  much  as  this. 

Under  the  first  head,  where  it  had  been  urged  by 
counsel,  that  a  freeman  might  have  no  opportunity  to 
prove  his  freedom  in  the  state  from  which  he  was  al 
leged  to  have  fled,  because  the  claimant  was  under  no 
obligation  to  carry  him  to  that  state,  but  might  send 
him  to  the  Cuban  or  Brazilian  market,  the  commissioner 
shuts  his  eyes  to  these  very  probable  consequences, 
and  refuses  to  consider  them  ;  but  under  the  fifth  head, 
where  an  argument  in  favor  of  the  slaveholder  could 
be  derived  from  consequences,  he  not  only  argues  elab 
orately  from  them,  but  bases  his  judgment  upon  them. 

There  are  two  remarks  thrown  out  in  the  course  of 
the  commissioner's  opinion  so  shocking  to  every  feel 
ing  of  humanity,  that  any  one,  in  commenting  upon 
them,  may  well  be  excused  for  passing  from  the  lan 
guage  of  argument  to  that  of  emotion. 

If  there  be  any  one  right  known  to  the  common  law 
more  important  and  sacred  than  all  others,  it  is  the 
right  of  confronting  and  cross-examining  the  witnesses 
who  are  brought  to  testify  against  us.  Without  this 
right,  there  is  no  fraud  that  cannot  be  practised  upon 
the  most  honest  man,  and  no  guilt  that  cannot  be 
proved  against  the  most  innocent  one.  Doubtless  this 
right  of  cross-examination  is  sometimes  abused  ;  but 
there  are  few  spectacles  more  exciting  or  more  gratify 
ing  than  to  see  the  demons  of  falsehood  driven  out, 
one  after  another,  from  a  perjured  villain,  until  the 
truth,  at  last,  is  wrenched  from  his  heart,  notwithstand 
ing  the  double  boltings  and  barrings  with  which  he 
had  locked  it  there.  The  fear  of  this  cross-examina 
tion  "  casting  its  shadows  before, "has  prevented  thou 
sands  and  tens  of  thousands  from  swearing  falsely. 
Next  to  honesty,  this  fear  is  the  greatest  protection  to 
property,  liberty,  arid  life. 
43 


506 

Now  the  testimony  which  doomed  Sims  to  slavery, 
and  which  may  doom  any  of  us  with  our  wives  and 
children  to  slavery,  when  men  grow,  not  more  wicked, 
but  only  a  little  more  bold  in  their  wickedness  than 
they  are  now,  was  wholly  ex  parte  testimony ;  ta 
ken,  not  merely  behind  the  victim's  back,  but  a  thou 
sand  miles  behind  his  back;  of  which  he  had  no 
knowledge,  and,  unless  he  were  omniscient,  like  God, 
could  have  no  knowledge.  Arid  when  the  counsel  of 
Sims  urged  upon  the  commissioner  the  enormity  of 
this  outrage  against  all  principle,  what  was  his  reply  ? 
It  was  this,  and  it  makes  a  man's  blood  run  cold  to 
read  it :  Sims's  absence  from  Georgia,  "  so  that  he 
could  not  be  served  with  notice,  if  he  was  entitled  to 
it,  was  in  his  own  wrong,  and  he  cannot  now  com 
plain  that  he  had  no  opportunity  to  cross-examine  the 
witnesses." 

I  appeal  to  all  history  to  prove,  that  no  judge  who 
ever  sat  upon  a  bench  where  the  common  law  was 
recognized  and  administered,  however  corrupt  he  may 
have  been,  ever  advanced  a  more  atrocious  doctrine. 
Why,  gentlemen,  if  a  debtor  absconds  for  the  very 
purpose  of  defrauding  his  creditors,  he  must  have  no 
tice  before  he  can  be  proceeded  against  for  the  recov 
ery  of  a  debt.  If  he  flees  from  the  state,  lurks  and 
hides  himself,  he  must  have  the  best  notice  the  court 
can  contrive  to  give  him.  If  the  plaintiff  recovers  and 
takes  out  execution,  he  must  file  a  bond  conditioned  to 
make  restoration  ;  and  years  afterwards,  if  the  defend 
ant  shall  come  back  and  show  cause,  he  shall  be  en 
titled  to  a  review  to  annul  the  whole  proceedings 
against  him.  Ay,  when  a  criminal,  a  robber,  a  mur 
derer,  an  incendiary,  is  brought  to  trial,  even  he  must 
be  "confronted  with  the  witnesses  against  him,  have 
compulsory  process  for  obtaining  witnesses  in  his  favor, 
and  the  assistance  of  counsel  in  his  defence."  And 
yet  the  commissioner  makes  proof  out  of  nothing,  that 


507 

Sims  escaped  from  slavery,  and  then,  because  of  this 
nothing-made  proof,  he  inculpates  him  with  being  ab 
sent  "  in  his  own  wrong." 

The  other  point  referred  to  arose  from  certain  testi 
mony,  (if  it  Ccin  be  called  testimony,)  that  the  mother 
of  Sims  begged  the  witness,  "  whether  her  son  was  in 
a  free  state  or  in  a  slave  state,  for  God's  sake,  to  bring 
him  back  again."  "  This,"  says  the  commissioner, 
"certainly  disarms  the  case  of  any  unpleasant  fea 
tures"  !  Why,  even  the  kine  of  the  barn-yard,  when 
the  butcher  cuts  the  throat  of  her  young,  will  weep 
and  low,  and  bellow,  for  days  and  days,  and  say,  as 
well  as  in  her  inarticulate  meanings  she  can  say,  "  For 
God's  sake,  let  it  be  brought  back  again;  "  though  the 
only  consequence  of  its  return  would  be  to  have  its 
throat  cut  by  the  butcher  again.  And  are  we  to  ex 
pect  that  the  brutalized,  chattelized  "  cattle  "  of  the 
south  will  have  less  of  that  natural  yearning  and  long 
ing  of  the  soul,  at  the  loss  of  their  offspring,  than  the 
animals  of  the  farmer's  yard  ?  Can  we  suppose  that 
God  has  not  planted  the  instinct  of  a  mother's  love 
too  deep  to  be  destroyed  but  by  the  destruction  of  the 
being  herself  in  whom  it  was  planted  ?  No !  debase 
the  mother  as  you  will,  by  ignorance,  vice,  superstition, 
lust,  concubinage,  incest,  and  this  wealth  of  affection 
will  still  glow  at  the  bottom  of  her  heart,  "rich  as  the 
oozy  bottom  of  the  deep  in  sunken  wrack  and  sumless 
treasures."  And  because  this  mother's  love  had  not 
been  all  extinguished,  the  commissioner  says  that  his 
sending  a  human  being  into  the  abyss  of  bondage,  on 
evidence  that  an  intelligent  barbarian  would  reject, 
"certainly  disarms  the  case  of  any  unpleasant  fea 
tures."  But  I  shall  not  expostulate  with  the  commis 
sioner.  A  man  must  have  a  heart  before  he  can  feel, 
as  he  must  have  eyes  before  he  can  see. 

"  0,  who  can  paint  a  siinbeam  to  the  blind, 
Or  make  him  feel  a  shadow  with  his  mind  ?  " 


508 

Fellow-citizens,  I  might  occupy  your  attention  much 
longer  upon  this  unprecedented  opinion  of  the  com 
missioner  ;  but  there  are  two  or  three  other  topics  to 
which  I  wish  to  call  your  attention,  and  I  therefore 
forbear.  In  saying  what  I  have  said,  I  disclaim  all 
personal  ill  will  or  discourtesy  towards  that  magistrate. 
Even  should  I  appear  not  to  have  succeeded  in  sup 
pressing  my  own  feelings,  I  certainly  cannot  wound 
his  more  than  he  has  wounded  mine,  and  those  I  be 
lieve  of  nine  tenths  of  all  who  have  ever  read  his 
opinion  ;  —  not  by  a  thousand  fold  as  much  as  he  has 
wounded  the  law,  whose  servant  he  is,  or  the  fair  fame 
of  Massachusetts,  of  which  he  is  a  citizen  ;  not  so  much 
as  his  decision  will  wound  the  hearts  of  an  intelligent 
posterity,  who  shall  look  back  upon  it  as  a  partisan  and 
an  ignoble  act,  not  to  be  remembered  without  a  sigh. 

If  the  legal  relations  of  slavery  did  not  sustain  the 
moral  ones,  as  the  root  sustains  the  branches  and  nour 
ishes  the  fruit,  those  moral  relations  would  seem  to  de 
mand  all  our  attention.  I  know  but  comparatively 
little,  and  no  man  living  at  the  north  can  know  but 
comparatively  little,  of  the  various  and  ever-repeated 
wickednesses  of  this  institution.  It  has  been  my  lot, 
however,  to  live  for  about  half  the  time,  during  the 
last  four  years,  in  the  midst  of  a  milder  form  of  sla 
very.  And  besides  this,  I  was  once  engaged  for  about 
six  weeks  in  the  trial  of  causes  growing  directly  out 
of  slavery  ;  and  that  experience  gave  me  some  insight 
into  its  dreadful  mysteries.  For  a  moment,  the  wind 
blew  the  smoke  and  flame  aside,  and  I  looked  into  its 
hell.  I  saw,  then,  as  I  had  never  seen  before,  what  a 
vital  and  inextinguishable  interest  every  human  being 
has  in  this  subject; — not  the  slaves  alone,  but  the 
free  men ;  not  voters  only,  but  all  who  can  be  affected 
by  votes ;  not  men  only,  but  especially  women. 

For  this  reason,  I  am  glad  to  see  so  many  ladies  in 


509 

this  audience.  It  becomes  them  to  be  here.  If  any 
mortal  should  cultivate  an  abhorrence  of  slavery,  the 
female  sex  should  do  it.  Whatever  any  one  may  hold 
to  be  the  social  relation  between  free  women  and  slave 
women,  yet  before  God  and  Christ,  and  all  the  holy 
angels,  they  belong  to  the  same  sisterhood  of  the 
human  race.  They  are  your  sisters.  And  what  is  the 
condition  of  these  your  sisters,  in  regard  to  everything 
that  a  virtuous  and  noble  woman  holds  most  sacred 
and  dear  ? 

Ladies,  there  are  now  in  this  land  of  pretended  free 
dom  and  pretended  gospel  a  million  arid  a  half  of 
women  who  have  no  practical  knowledge  of  what  a 
woman's  higher  life  should  be,  or  what  a  woman's 
most  precious  rights  are.  Since  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  the  number  of  slaves  in  this  country 
has  increased  from  less  than  five  hundred  thousand  to 
more  than  three  millions ;  and  before  the  close  of  this 
century,  their  descendants  will  increase  to  more  than 
thrice  three  millions.  And  yet,  neither  as  to  the  living 
nor  as  to  the  dead,  has  there  ever  been  a  lawful  mar 
riage  among  them  all.  There  has  never  been  a  man 
slave  who  could  say,  "  This  is  my  wife,  heart  of 
my  heart,  and  life  of  my  life,  and  no  mortal  power 
shall  pluck  her  from  my  side."  There  has  never  been 
a  woman  slave  who  could  say,  "This  is  my  lawful, 
wedded  husband,  whom  I  promise  to  love  and  cherish, 
and  to  whom  I  vow  inviolable  constancy."  "  For 
this  cause,"  says  Christ,  "shall  a  man  leave  father  and 
mother,  and  shall  cleave  to  his  wife,  and  they  twain 
shall  be  one  flesh."  But  the  "twain  "  of  slaves  are 
never  one.  And  even  when  any  sham  ceremony  is 
observed,  to  distinguish  this  holy  relation  of  husband 
and  wife  from  the  cohabitations  of  beasts,  and  he  who 
officiates  comes  to  those  other  words  of  Christ,  "  What, 
therefore,  God  has  joined  together,  let  not  man  put 
asunder,"  he  stops ;  for  he  knows,  and  they  all  know, 
43* 


510 

that  a  few  dollars,  at  any  time,  will  bring  oereavemenl 
upon  both,  — a  double  bereavement,  he  a  widower  and 
she  a  widow,  both  still  surviving.  Their  life,  at 
best,  is  but  a  life  of  concubinage;  —  not  even  that 
concubinage,  which,  though  not  founded  upon  a  law 
ful  contract,  has  still  something  like  conjugal  fidelity 
in  it,  and  therefore  a  semblance  of  virtue  ;  but  a  various 
and  vagrant  concubinage,  traversing  the  circle  of  over 
seer,  master,  master's  guests,  and  master's  sons.  The 
fate  of  the  children  born  to  the  slave  mother  you  all 
know.  Those  objects  upon  which  all  maternal  affec 
tions  meet  and  glow  as  in  a  focus,  are  torn  from  her 
bosom,  like  lambs  from  the  flock  when  the  shambles 
are  empty. 

And  as  to  those  females  who  are  young,  sprightly, 
and  handsome  :  — 

Charge  me  not  with  indelicacy  in  touching  upon 
this  theme.  Honi  soit  qui  mal  y  pense.  I  speak  not 
to  fastidious  ears,  but  to  the  pure  in  heart,  to  whom  all 
things  are  pure.  I  speak  of  eternal  verities,  before 
whose  massive  force  the  heart  trembles  and  bows 
itself,  as  reeds  before  the  tempest.  It  is  the  grossest 
and  most  shameless  of  all  indelicacies  to  patronize  and 
multiply  vice,  through  pusillanimity  in  exposing  it,  — 

As  to  those  females,  I  say,  who  are  young,  sprightly, 
and  handsome,  whom  God  has  damned  with  beauty 
of  form  and  beauty  of  face,  because  they  only  attract 
the  gloating  eye  of  passion,  who  can  describe  the  loath 
someness  of  their  life  ?  They  are  ripened  for  the  New 
Orleans,  or  for  some  other  market,  whence  southern 
harems  are  supplied  ;  as,  under  the  Mahometan  religion, 
white  Caucasian  beauties  are  sent  to  the  slave  marts  of 
the  darker-skinned  Turk. 

In  that  company  of  seventy-six  persons  who  at 
tempted,  in  1848,  to  escape  from  the  Distnct  of  Colum 
bia  in  the  schooner  Pearl,  and  whose  officers  I  assisted 
in  defending,  there  were  several  young  and  healthy 


511 

girls  who  had  those  peculiar  attractions  of  form,  of  fea 
ture,  and  of  complexion,  which  southern  connoisseurs 
in  sensualism  so  highly  prize.  Elizabeth  Russell  was 
one  of  them.  She  fell  immediately  into  the  slave- 
traders'  fangs,  and  was  doomed  for  the  New  Orleans 
market.  The  hearts  of  those  Avho  saw  her  and  fore 
saw  her  fate  were  touched  with  pity.  They  offered 
eighteen  hundred  dollars  to  redeem  her,  and  some 
there  were  who  offered  to  give,  who  would  not  have 
had  much  left  after  the  gift.  But  the  fiend  of  a  slave 
trader  was  inexorable.  He  knew  how  he  could  trans 
mute  her  charms  into  gold  through  the  fires  of  sin. 
He  demanded  twenty-one  hundred  dollars,  (though  for 
menial  services  she  would  not  have  been  worth  more 
than  four  or  five,)  and  would  take  nothing  less.  She 
was  despatched  to  New  Orleans,  but  when  about  half 
way  there,  God  had  mercy  upon  her  and  smote  her 
with  death.  Perhaps,  foreseeing  her  fate,  she  practised 
what,  under  such  circumstances,  we  might  call  the 
virtue  of  suicide.  There  were  two  girls  named  Ed- 
mundson  in  the  same  company.  When  about  to  be 
sent  to  the  same  market,  an  older  sister  went  to  the 
shambles  to  plead  with  the  wretch  who  owned  them, 
for  the  love  of  God,  to  spare  his  victims.  He  bantered 
her,  telling  her  what  fine  dresses  and  fine  furniture 
they  would  have.  "  Yes,"  said  she,  "  that  may  do 
well  in  this  life,  but  what  will  become  of  them  in  the 
next  ?  "  They,  too,  were  sent  to  New  Orleans,  but 
they  were  afterwards  redeemed  at  an  enormous  ransom, 
and  brought  back.  There  was  one  girl,  who,  after  her 
recapture  in  the  Pearl,  was  sold  six  times  in  seven 
weeks,  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,  for  her  beauty's  sake. 
But  she  proved  heroically  and  sublimely  intractable. 
Like  Rebecca,  the  Jewess,  she  would  have  flung  her 
self  from  the  loftiest  battlement,  rather  than  yield  her 
person  to  a  villain.  Notwithstanding  her  masters'  pre 
tence  that  they  had  bought  her  with  their  money,  and 


512 

owned  her  soul,  yet  she  had  wealth,  which,  though  all 
the  earth  were  "one  entire  and  perfect  chrysolite,"  it 
could  not  buy.  It  was  not  difficult,  therefore,  'to  pur 
chase  her,  and  she  was  redeemed  and  came  to  New 
York  ;  and  I  have  been  informed  in  the  most  authentic 
manner  from  the  lady  of  the  very  respectable  family  of 
which  she  became  an  inmate,  that,  on  an  examination 
of  her  person,  after  the  healing-time  of  the  journey  had 
passed,  her  body  was  found  scarred  and  waled  with 
whip  marks,  which  the  villains  inflicted  upon  her  be 
cause  she  would  not  come  to  their  bed. 

Now,  suppose  a  sister  or  daughter  of  yours,  of  this 
heroic  soul  and  spotless  purity,  should  find  herself  on 
the  way  to  New  Orleans; — suppose,  by  almost  super 
human  power  and  adroitness,  she  should  escape,  and 
should  thread  her  solitary  and  darksome  path,  for  hun 
dreds  of  miles,  towards  the  north  star  ;  should  lie  down 
in  caverns,  with  poisonous  reptiles  by  day,  and  pursue 
her  lonely  journey  by  night,  finding  the  beasts  of  the 
forests  to  be  less  terrible  than  man ;  should  swim  riv 
ers,  and  keep  off  famine  by  roots  and  insects,  until  at 
last,  thanks  be  to  God,  she  sets  her  mangled  and  bleed 
ing  feet  upon  the  soil  of  freedom.  Perhaps  some  echo 
of  the  fame  of  the  Pilgrim  mothers  has  reached  her 
ears.  She  has  heard  of  Boston  and  its  noble  women 
of  old,  and  she  hies  hither  as  to  a  city  of  refuge,  —  as 
to  a  sanctuary  where  virtue  has  an  altar,  and  where 
she  can  lay  down  her  hunted  and  weary  body,  and  be 
at  rest.  Fallacious  hope !  The  lecher  pursues  his 
prey,  and  he  is  here.  He  goes  to  some  Glossin  lawyer 
who  sues  out  a  warrant ;  and  to  some  Jack  Ketch  who 
serves  it.  The  victim  is  seized  at  midnight,  under 
some  lying  charge,  and  she  is  carried  before  a  commis 
sioner,  whose  conduct,  were  he  a  quasi  judge,  as  he 
pretends  to  be,  would  be  enough  to  make  every  hair 
of  the  judicial  ermine  forever  detestable.  Here  a  pro 
cess  is  gone  through  which  she  does  not  understand, 


513 

and  some  papers  are  read  of  which  she  never  heard, 
and  then  a  judgment  is  pronounced  that  her  "labor" 
is  "due"  to  her  pursuer,  (and  such  labor!)  that  she 
"owes  service  "  to  him,  (and  such  service  !)  and  then 
the  commissioner  delivers  her  into  his  arms,  and  pock 
ets  a  fee  which  common  pimps  would  be  ashamed  to 
work  for. 

And,  my  friends,  the  keenest  pang  in  the  grief  of  all 
this  is,  that  there  is  no  fiction  or  romance  about  it.  A 
commissioner  who  could  bring  himself  down  to  send  a 
man  to  a  Georgia  cotton-field  under  this  law,  the  first 
time  trying,  could  send  a  virtuous  and  spotless  woman 
into  enforced  harlotry  the  second  time  ;  and  the  prince 
of  darkness  only  knows  what  he  could  not  set  him  to 
do  afterwards.  The  clergymen  who  could  defend  the 
enslavers  of  Sims  because  he  "owed"  the  "service" 
of  one  sex,  could  defend  the  enslavers  of  a  woman  be 
cause  she  "  owed  "  the  "  service  "  of  the  other  sex  ;  — 
the  clergymen  of  the  rich  parishes  I  mean;  —  for  it 
happens,  with  the  constancy  of  a  law  of  nature,  that  it 
is  only  the  clergymen  of  the  rich  parishes  who  do  this. 
Do  they  not  know  how  to  serve  and  reverence  their 
Lord  and  Master, — that  is,  their  Landlord  and  Pay 
master  ! 

But,  fellow-citizens,  as  our  feelings  are  stimulated 
to  the  keenest  sensibility,  in  looking  at  the  infinite  of 
wrong  which  slavery  commits;  as  we  see  the  millions 
and  millions  of  human  beings  dimly  emerging  into 
view,  and  crowding  down  the  vista  of  futurity  to  blast 
our  eyes  with  the  vision  of  their  woe,  a  potent  voice 
rings  in  our  ears,  exclaiming,  "  Conquer  your  preju 
dices"  "CONQUER  YOUR  PREJUDICES."  And  this  exe 
crable  counsel  is  uttered  in  reference  to  the  infinite 
crime  and  disgrace  of  sending  into  slavery,  without  a 
trial,  those  who  are  free  under  our  laws,  —  the  men  to 
stripes  and  death,  arid  the  women  to  the  body's  shame 
and  the  soul's  perdition.  Fouler,  baser,  more  ungodly 


514 

counsel  was  never  uttered,  since  it  was  said  to  our  first 
parents  in  the  garden  of  Eden,  "  On  the  day  them  eatest 
thereof  thou  shalt  not  surely  die." 

And  what  is  it  that  this  long-honored  eulogist  of 
liberty,  but  now  its  great  apostate,  blasphemes  with  the 
name  of  "prejudice"?  If  there  be  one  sentiment 
more  deeply  rooted  in  the  public  heart  of  Massachu 
setts  than  any  other,  more  intertwined  and  grown 
together  with  all  the  fibres  of  its  being,  it  is  the  sen 
timent  of  liberty.  We  have  drunk  it  in  with  our 
mothers'  milk  j  we  have  imbibed  it  from  all  the  lessons 
of  the  school-room  and  the  teachings  of  the  sanctuary  ; 
we  have  inspired  it  with  the  atmosphere  we  breathe, 
and  our  organs  have  been  attuned  to  it  from  our  birth, 
by  the  anthems  of  the  mountain's  wind  and  the  ocean's 
roar.  It  was  from  the  love  of  liberty  that  our  earlier 
fathers  plucked  themselves  up  by  the  roots  from  that 
natal  soil  into  which  they  had  been  fastening  for  cen 
turies.  For  this  they  wandered  abroad  upon  the  ocean, 
deeming  its  ingulfing  surges  to  he  more  tolerable  than 
a  tyrant's  power.  For  this  they  transplanted  them 
selves  to  this  land,  at  that  time  more  distant  and  more 
formidable  to  them  than  any  part  of  the  habitable  globe 
could  now  be  to  us.  For  this  they  performed  the 
double  task  of  enduring  all  privations  and  dangers,  and 
at  the  same  time  of  laying  the  foundations  of  all  our 
free  and  glorious  institutions ;  and  as  the  sires  were 
stricken  down  by  toil  and  death,  the  sons  took  up  the 
work  and  bore  it  on,  generation  after  generation. 

For  this  noble  sentiment  of  liberty  our  later  fathers 
encountered  the  perils  and  deaths  of  a  seven  years' 
war,  and  amid  poverty  and  destitution,  amid  hunger 
and  cold  and  nakedness,  without  any  of  the  protections 
and  defences  of  battle  which  the  wealth  of  their  foe 
could  command,  they  bared  their  noble  breasts  to  the 
shock  of  the  mailed  legions  of  the  British  crown.  And 
when  the  struggle  was  ended  and  the  triumph  won, 


515 

they  achieved  labors  of  peace  not  less  magnanimous  and 
wonderful  than  their  labors  of  war. 

They  were  the  pattern  men  of  the  world  ;  —  not 
aggressive,  not  submissive  ;  not  hostile,  not  servile  : 
doing  right,  demanding  right ;  they  were  the  men  who 
would  never  wield  the  oppressor's  rod,  and  would  go 
mad  at  the  touch  of  his  heel. 

Now,  there  is  not  one  of  all  those  glorious  deeds, 
from  the  embarkation  at  Delfthaven  to  the  signing  of 
the  peace  of  1783,  or  the  inauguration  of  the  federal 
government  in  1789,  which  was  not  begotten  by  the 
love  of  liberty,  or  would  have  been  performed  without 
its  creative  energy.  And  yet,  the  arch-apostate,  stand 
ing  in  the  city  of  Boston,  the  home  of  old  Samuel 
Adams  and  John  Hancock,  within  a  stone's  throw  of 
the  spot  where  Benjamin  Franklin  was  born,  in  sight 
of  Bunker  Hill,  and  with  Lexington  and  Concord,  as 
it  were,  just  hiding  themselves  behind  the  hills  for 
shame,  calls  all  this  a  "  prejudice,"  and  commands  us  to 
cast  it  from  us  as  an  unclean  thing.  Was  it  not  enough 
to  make  the  stones  in  the  streets,  and  every  block  in 
that  eternal  shaft  which  marks  the  spot  where  Warren 
fell,  cry  out  "  with  most  miraculous  organ  "  to  rebuke 
him  ? 

We  have  another,  and  it  is  a  kindred  "  prejudice." 
We  have  a  "  prejudice  "  of  sixty  years'  standing  in  fa 
vor  of  the  principle  of  the  ordinance  of  1787.  That 
ordinance  has  been  cherished  in  our  memories,  it  has 
been  taught  to  our  children,  and  we  have  displayed  it 
before  the  world  both  as  the  pledge  and  the  promise  of 
our  devotion  to  liberty.  Five  states,  now  numbering 
five  millions  of  men,  were  the  battalions  whom  that 
ordinance  wheeled  from  the  ranks  of  Belial  to  the 
Lord's  side.  Hundreds  of  times  have  the  Whig  party 
and  the  Democratic  party  resolved  that  the  principle 
of  that  ordinance  should  be  maintained  inviolate.  Mr. 
Webster  claimed  the  application  of  it  to  the  new 


516 

territories,  as  his  thunder,  and  swaggered  as  he  rattled  it. 
Now  he  calls  the  great  achievement  of  Thomas  Jeffer 
son  and  Nathan  Dane  a  "prejudice"  and  dishonors 
their  graves  by  his  scoffs.  He  abandons  the  vast  re 
gions  of  Utah  and  New  Mexico  to  the  slaveholder  ;  he 
gives  more  than  fifty  thousand  square  miles  of  free 
territory  to  Texas  ;  he  gives  ten  millions  of  dollars  in 
money,  (more  than,  with  all  our  devotion  and  self- 
sacrifice,  we  have  been  able  to  appropriate  to  public 
education  in  Massachusetts  for  the  last  ten  years;) 
and  worse  than  this,  he  gives  permission  that  she  may 
carve  out  of  her  territory  a  slave  state  additional  to 
what  had  been  unconstitutionally  contracted  for  when 
she  came  into  the  Union. 

And  for  what  does  he  flout  us,  by  stigmatizing  all 
these  sacred  convictions  and  sentiments  and  instincts 
as  "prejudices  "  ?  Only  to  feed  the  famine  of  his  am 
bition.  He  began  to  see,  what  every  body  else  has  so 
long  seen,  that  his  vices  were  bringing  upon  him  the 
retribution  of  premature  old  age  and  decrepitude  ;  and 
that,  unless  he  could  enter  the  White  House  the  next 
term,  he  must  wait,  at  least  until  the  great  Julian  pe 
riod  should  bring  the  world  round  again.  He  parleyed 
with  southern  tempters,  and  fell. 

Nor  did  he  outrage  our  feelings  only.  He  sacrificed 
our  pecuniary  interests,  our  very  means  of  subsistence. 
Massachusetts  would  be  prospering  under  an  improved 
system  of  protection  for  our  domestic  industry  to-day, 
but  for  Mr.  Webster's  apostasy,  which  stripped  us  of 
all  our  power  and  of  all  our  unity,  and  inflamed  the 
spirit  of  southern  aggrandizement  to  demand  every 
thing  and  yield  nothing.  Could  the  issue  be  now 
formed,  and  the  case  tried,  whether  Daniel  Webster's 
course  in  1850  did  not  deprive  the  working-men  of 
the  country  of  a  tariff  for  the  protection  of  their  labor, 
not  an  intelligent  and  impartial  jury  could  be  found 
that  would  not  bring  him  in  guilty.  This  result 


r>ir 

every  unbiased  man  at  Washington  saw,  last  summer ; 
while  he  was  cajoling  the  men  of  the  north  with  the 
delusion  that,  if  they  would  surrender  liberty,  they 
should  have  their  reward  in  a  tariff.  I  speak  of  this 
with  confidence,  because  there  are  hundreds  of  my 
constituents  and  acquaintances  who  will  bear  me  wit 
ness  that,  in  personal  interviews,  and  by  correspond 
ence,  they  were  warned,  that  if  they  followed  Mr. 
Webster  in  his  recreancy  to  principles,  he  would  leave 
them  without  relief  in  the  matter  of  property. 

Fellow-citizens,  I  will  trespass  upon  your  attention 
but  for  a  moment  longer.  I  wish  to  advance  one  idea 
for  the  consideration  of  all  sober,  moral,  and  religious 
men  ;  and  when  this  idea  is  duly  considered,  I  trust  to 
its  working  a  revolution  in  public  sentiment.  In  se 
lecting  men  to  be  our  political  leaders,  we  have  some 
times  committed  the  gravest  moral  error.  We  have 
assumed  the  falsity  of  a  distinction  between  a  man's 
public  and  his  private  life.  We  have  supposed  that 
the  same  individual  might  be  a  bad  man  and  a  good 
citizen  ;  might  be  a  patriot  and  an  inebriate,  a  faithful 
officer  and  a  debauchee,  at  the  same  time  ;  might  serve 
his  country  during  "  office  hours,"  and  the  powers  of 
darkness  the  rest  of  the  twenty-four.  But  1  say,  as 
of  old,  no  man  can  serve  God  and  mammon. 

We  have  been  too  prone  to  judge  of  men  by  their 
professions  and  by  their  connections.  We  seem  to 
have  forgotten  that  the  tree  is  to  be  known  by  its  fruit, 
and  a  man  by  his  life.  If  we  are  to  take  the  Pharisee's 
rule,  and  determine  a  man's  piety  by  his  creed,  and  by 
the  number  and  length  of  his  prayers,  then  piety  will 
be  the  cheapest  thing  in  the  market,  and  as  worthless 
as  it  is  cheap. 

In  choosing  teachers  to  be  the  guides  and  exemplars 
of  our  children,  we  demand  high  moral  worth  ;  and 
we  would  as  soon  thrust  our  youth  into  the  centre  of 
44 


518 

pestilence,  as  amid  the  contagion  of  vicious  and  profli 
gate  men. 

In  selecting  our  religious  guides,  we  feel  almost  jus 
tified  in  being  captiously  and  morbidly  critical  ;  we 
hardly  admit  that  we  can  be  strict  to  a  fault  ;  and  the 
man  who  fails  to  carry  personal  purity  and  exemplari- 
ness  into  the  pastoral  life,  is  driven  from*  it  with 
indignation  and  contempt. 

I  admit  too,  rejoicingly,  that,  in  Massachusetts,  this 
preventive  and  praiseworthy  discipline  has  been  more 
extensively  applied  to  political  men  than  in  any  other 
state  in  the  Union.  Our  highest  state  offices  have 
been  filled  for  years,  saving  very  rare  exceptions,  with 
men  of  distinguished  probity  and  a  spotless  life.  And 
why,  in  this  department,  should  we  ever  grant  dispen 
sations  and  absolutions ;  or,  like  the  old  popes,  sell 
indulgences  to  sin  ? 

Now,  let  this  doctrine  be  applied ;  for  I  hold  it  to  be 
no  unwarrantable  invasion  of  private  character  to  apply 
these  principles  to  public  men.  When  public  men  openly 
and  notoriously  practise  vice,  they  make  the  vice  public, 
and  bring  it  within  public  jurisdiction.  If  it  is  public 
for  example,  it  is  public  for  criticism ;  and.  under  such 
circumstances,  the  moral  and  religious  guides  of  the 
community* are  as  solemnly  bound  "truly  to  find,  and 
due  presentment  make,"  of  these  offences,  as  the  grand 
jury  is  in  the  case  of  crimes  against  the  laws  of  the 
land.  I  say,  therefore,  let  us  apply  this  doctrine. 

How  long  have  all  good  citizens  in  Massachusetts 
labored  in  the  glorious  cause  of  temperance  !  They 
have  devoted  time,  expended  talent,  lavished  money, 
incurred  obloquy  ;  but,  as  their  reward,  they  have 
plucked  the  guilty  from  perdition  ;  rescued  the  young, 
just  losing  their  balance  over  the  precipice  of  ruin  ; 
saved  the  widow  and  the  fatherless  from  unutterable 
woe,  and  driven  demons  of  discord  from  domestic 


519 

Edens.  Now  why,  after  all  our  toils  and  sacrifices  to 
uphold  and  carry  forward  the  cause  of  temperance, 
and  to  make  its  name  as  honorable  as  it  is  blessed  ; 
why  should  we  demolish  all  our  work  by  elevating 
a  man  to  a  high  political  station,  or  by  upholding  him 
when  in  it,  who.  in  the  face  of  the  nation  and  of  the 
world,  will  become  so  drunken  that  he  cannot  articu 
late  his  mother  tongue  ?  Is  this  an  example  you  desire 
to  set  before  the  ingenuous  and  aspiring  youth  of  the 
land  ;  ay,  before  your  own  children  ? 

We  have  had  men  in  the  presidential  chair  not 
without  faults  and  blemishes  of  character  ;  but  hitherto 
we  may  proudly  say,  that  we  never  have  had  one 
there  who  drowned  his  reason  in  his  cups.  God  grant 
that  we  never  may.  Think  of  this  magnificent  ship 
of  state  freighted  with  twenty-three  millions  of  souls, 
and  laden  to  the  scuppers  with  the  wealth  of  the 
world's  hopes,  with  a  pilot  at  the  helm  —  drunk! 

We  are  an  industrious  and  a  frugal  people.  The 
aptitude  is  born  with  us.  A  true  Massachusetts  boy 
seems  to  take  to  ingenious  labor  and  to  labor-saving 
contrivances  from  his  birth,  —  like  a  duck  almost  im 
patient  to  be  hatched,  that  it  may  get  into  the  water. 
We  prize  and  honor  the  home-bred  virtues  of  diligence 
and  thrift ;  for  they  bestow  upon  us  all  our  comforts, 
the  means  of  educating  our  children,  and  leave  us  a 
magnificent  surplus  for  godlike  charities  to  be  scattered 
over  the  world. 

Dr.  Franklin  has  stamped  a  family  likeness  upon  us 
all.  His  economical  wisdom  is  domesticated  among 
us.  Take  a  sound  and  pure  specimen  of  a  Massa 
chusetts  farmer  or  mechanic,  and  analyze  him,  and 
you  will  find  tfiat,  of  his  whole  composition,  from  six 
to  ten  ounces  in  the  pound  is  made  up  of  Dr.  Franklin. 
Now,  why  should  we  root  out  this  luxuriant,  fruit- 
bearing  virtue  ?  Why  welcome  and  court  and  feed 
the  prodigalities  and  sensualities  of  the  old  world,  to 


520 

corrupt  the  pristine  virtues  of  the  new  ?  Can  he  be  a 
republican  after  the  severe  simplicity  and  grandeur  of 
the  old  Roman  type  ;  can  he  be  an  exemplary  citizen, 
who  must  have  his  thirty,  forty,  or  even  fifty  thousand 
dollars  a  year,  to  squander  upon  what  I  must  not  call, 
"  to  ears  polite,"  his  vices  and  passions,  but,  more  gen 
teelly,  "  his  tastes  and  feelings,"  while  millions  of 
honest  laborers  thank  God  if  by  incessant  toil  they  can 
earn  their  daily  bread  for  their  families,  and  the  bread 
of  knowledge  for  their  children  ?  Can  they  be  good 
citizens,  or,  at  least,  are  they  not  grievously  deluded, 
who  will  give  such  purses  to  such  a  man  for  being  the 
advocate  and  agent  of  their  special  interests,  while 
there  are  hundreds  of  suffering  men  and  women,  and 
more  suffering  children,  at  their  own  doors  ?  Do  you 
want  your  children  to  grow  up  inflamed  by  such  ex 
amples  of  excess  and  wantonness  ?  I  know  that  all 
this  is  defended  on  the  ground  that  something  must  be 
done  for  a  great  man's  family.  Ay,  that  family! 
The  progeny  and  costliness  of  the  vices,  what  Cali- 
fornias  shall  be  able  to  support  ?  I  know,  too,  that  it 
is  also  said  we  must  have  great  talents  in  the  public 
councils,  at  whatever  price.  Well,  if  this  be  your 
philosophy,  don't  do  the  work  by  halves,  but  import 
Lucifer  at  once ! 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  you  know  that  all  the  men 
who  are  guilty  of  these  great  derelictions  from  civil 
and  social  duty  are  the  men  who  uphold  the  Fugitive 
Slave  law. 

I  might  touch  upon  more  holy  relations  in  life  ; 
upon  virtues  without  which  there  is  no  home  and  no 
domestic  sanctuary ;  without  which  there  may  be 
children,  but  the  sacred  institution  of  the  family  is 
gone.  But  I  forbear.  I  only  desire  to  awaken  your 
attention  to  the  great  duty  of  extending  the  domain 
of  conscience  over  politics;  of  holding  public  men 
answerable  for  those  vices  which  it  is  a  great  misno- 


521 

mer  to  call  private  when  they  are  committed  in  the 
face  of  the  world.  "The  pulpit  is  false  to  its  trust" 
if  it  does  not  follow  and  rebuke  them,  under  whatever 
robes  of  official  dignity  they  may  hold  their  revels. 

Three  great  stages  of  development  belong  to  the 
world.  First,  there  was  the  period  of  physical  devel 
opment,  when  the  tallest  man  was  crowned  king, 
when  the  strongest  muscles  enacted  the  laws,  when 
brute  force  was  "  His  Royal  Majesty,"  and  claimed  and 
received  the  homage  of  mankind.  That  age  has 
passed  ;  and  how  contemptible  does  all  its  greatness 
now  appear !  Then  came  the  age  when  the  mind 
towered  above  the  body,  when  a  nation's  power  no 
longer  consisted  in  the  millions  of  its  men,  but  in  the 
treasuries  of  its  knowledge  ;  when  the  intellect  took 
up  the  vastest  concentrations  of  animal  strength,  which 
seemed  omnipotent  before,  lifted  them  off  their  ful 
crum,  and  they,  became  like  a  feather,  in  the  breath 
of  its  power.  That  age  is  the  present.  The  moral 
age  is  yet  to  be  ushered  in.  In  this  age,  the  intellect 
ual  forces  shall  still  retain  all  their  dominion  and  su 
premacy  over  the  physical  world,  but  the  moral  shall 
preside  over  the  intellectual,  and  move  them  as  God 
moves  the  stars,  bringing  them  out  of  chaos,  and 
wheeling  them  in  circuits  of  unimaginable  grandeur, 
and  for  purposes  of  beneficence  yet  inconceivable.  In 
that  day,  the  lawgivers  of  the  land  shall  be  no  longer 
"  compromisers  "  between  duty  and  mammon,  and  the 
judges  shall  judge  in  righteousness.  In  that  day,  the 
merchant,  for  the  lucre  of  trade,  shall  not  pay  tribute 
in  human  beings,  and  send  his  flesh-tax  across  the  free 
waters.  In  that  day,  the  gospel  of  human  brotherhood, 
of  doing  as  we  would  be  done  by,  and  of  loving  our 
neighbors  as  ourselves,  shall  no  longer  be  doled  out  to  us 
by  priests  of  the  broad  phylactery  sort,  in  homoeopathic 
doses,  reduced  to  the  five  hundredth  dilution.  But  in 
that  glorious  day,  the  men  who  sit  in  the  Areopagus 
44* 


522 

of  the  nation,  clothed  with  the  ermine  of  the  law, 
shall  be,  as  the  heathen  of  old  figured  the  emblem  of 
Justice,  blind  in  the  outward  eye  ;  and  all  they  know 
of  color  shall  be  to  give  no  color  to  the  law.  In  that 
day  the  successors  of  St.  Paul  shall  preach  what  he 
preached,  when  standing  "  in  the  midst  of  Mars  Hill," 
—  a  God  of  equity,  of  righteousness,  of  justice,  of 
benevolence  ;  the  God  who  made  "  of  one  blood  all 
nations  of  men,"  who,  alas  !  to  so  many  in  our  day  is 
"  the  UNKNOWN  GOD." 

In  that  day,  when  a  whole  people  are  aroused  to 
ponder,  with  unwonted  intensity,  upon  the  great  prin 
ciples  for  which  Sidney  and  Vane  bled ;  for  which 
Hampden  smote  the  tyrant  of  his  day  ;  for  which  the 
heroes  of  the  revolution  pledged  fortune,  life,  and 
sacred  honor ;  no  voice  shall  strive  to  seduce  them 
from  their  sacred  work  by  its  Belial  cry,  "  CONQUER 

YOUR     PREJUDICES  !  " 

Fellow-citizens,  if  you  wish  to  cooperate  in  bring 
ing  on  this  glorious  era,  your  first  step  is  to  vote  for 
that  noble  man  who  ransomed  his  own  slaves, — JOHN 
G.  PALFREY. 


523 


SPEECH 

DELIVERED,  ON  TAKING  THE  CHAIR,  AS  PRESIDENT  OF  THE 
GREAT  MASS  CONVENTION,  CALLED,  WITHOUT  DISTINCTION 
OF  PARTY,  IN  OPPOSITION  TO  THE  FUGITIVE  SLAVE  LAW, 

AND     HELD    AT    THE    TREMONT     TEMPLE     IN    BOSTON,    APRIL    8, 
1851.* 

GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  CONVENTION; 

I  thank  you  cordially  for  the  honor  of  being  called 
to  this  place  ;  though  I  could  have  wished  that  your 
choice  had  fallen  upon  some  one  of  the  many  more 
meritorious  men  whom  I  see  all  around  me. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  come  here  to-day  to  add  my  fee 
ble  voice  to  the  thunder  tones  of  execration  against  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law,  with  which  every  free  state  in  this 
Union,  and  every  free  community  upon  the  earth,  are 
now  echoing  and  reechoing. 

I  do  not  propose  to  occupy  your  attention  long. 
Where  so  many  things  are  to  be  said,  and  so  many 
persons,  far  better  qualified  than  I  am,  are  present  to 
say  them,  I  shall  consult  at  once  your  advantage  and 
my  duty,  by  being  brief. 

We  have  come  together  with  especial  reference  to 
the  Fugitive  Slave  law ;  but  that  execrable  statute 
connects  itself  so  directly  with  almost  every  other 
prominent  measure  of  the  government,  and  with  the 

*  This  meeting  was  held  pending  the  trial,  before  Mr.  Commission 
er  Curtis,  of  Thomas  Sims,  an  alleged  fugitive  slave  from  Georgia. 
During  the  trial,  the  Boston  court  house  was  surrounded  by  a  large 
police  force,  and  was  enclosed  in  chains,  beneath  which  the  judges 
of  the  supreme  court  of  Massachusetts  bowed  as  they  entered  and 
retired. 


524 

leading  acts  of  our  public  men,  during  the  past  year, 
that  it  opens  the  whole  subject  of  human  liberty,  and 
our  duty,  as  freemen,  in  regard  to  human  rights.  Es 
pecially  does  it  behoove  us  to  inquire,  by  what  means, 
by  whose  instrumentality,  the  country  has  been  insti 
gated  to  this  treason  against  the  rights  of  men,  and 
when  we  may  expect  their  machinations  will  be 
brought  to  an  end. 

Some  of  our  official  dignitaries  are  giving  us  law 
lectures  on  the  subject  of  high  treason  against  the  gov 
ernment.  I  hope  they  will  not  object,  if  we  recipro 
cate  the  favor,  by  giving  them  a  lecture  on  the  higher 
treason  against  God  and  humanity,  of  which  they  are 
guilty. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  with  unspeakable  humiliation  and 
regret  that  I  look  back  and  see  where  Massachusetts 
stood  twelve  or  thirteen  months  ago,  and  where  so 
many  of  her  citizens  stand  now.  Up  to  that  ever- 
accursed  day,  the  7th  of  March,  1850,  there  was  not  a 
Massachusetts  man,  in  the  councils  of  the  state  or  na 
tion  ;  —  nay,  so  far  as  I  know,  there  was  riot  a  single 
Massachusetts  man  any  where,  of  any  standing  or  re 
spectability,  who  did  not  assert  and  proclaim  his  hos 
tility  to  the  extension  of  slavery  ;  his  purpose  to  main 
tain  at  all  times  the  principle  of  the  ordinance  of  1787  ; 
and  his  "resolute  and  fixed  determination,"  (to  use 
Mr.  Webster's  language,)  "to  make  no  further  conces 
sions  to  slavery  and  the  slave  power."  The  public 
men  of  the  state,  the  press  of  the  state,  the  legislature 
of  the  state,  avowed  these  sentiments ;  and  the  politi 
cal  conventions  of  the  state  rang  with  these  declara 
tions  from  side  to  side. 

But  on  that  ever-memorable  day  a  senator  of  the 
United  States,  from  Massachusetts,  saw  fit  to  trample 
under  foot  every  thing  that  he  had  ever  said  in  behalf 
of  human  freedom  and  against  human  bondage.  He 
saw  fit  to  curl  his  lip  and  to  intonate  his  voice  in  scon 2 


of  the  principle  of  the  ordinance  of  1787,  and  to  dis 
honor  the  memory  of  Nathan  Dane,  whom,  a  few 
years  before,  on  the  same  spot,  he  had  eulogized.  He 
saw  lit  to  contemn  what  he  knew  to  be  the  honest 
sentiments  of  Massachusetts.  He  went  far,  far  out  of 
his  way,  to  fortify  and  extend  the  institution  of  sla 
very.  He  offered  to  add  new  states  to  its  power,  and 
to  take  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  from  the  treas 
ury  of  the  United  States,  to  be  expended  for  its  extra- 
constitutional  security  and  defence. 

I  shall  not  dwell  upon  the  perfidious  nature  of  that 
deed,  nor  upon  the  obvious  motive  that  prompted  it. 
I  will  rather  advert  to  the  measures  which  have  since 
been  taken  to  corrupt  the  public  sentiment  of  Massa 
chusetts,  and  of  the  whole  north,  and  to  bring  over 
the  people,  some  to  a  palliation  and  others  to  a  full  in 
dorsement  of  it. 

As  soon  as  the  stunning  effect  of  that  treacherous 
blow  upon  all  the  moral  and  religious  sensibilities  of 
the  state,  and  upon  its  traditional  and  inwrought  love 
of  liberty,  had  begun  to  subside,  a  systematic  effort 
was  commenced  to  debauch  the  patriotism  and  human 
ity  of  the  people,  by  an  appeal  to  their  cupidity.  Our 
manufacturing  and  commercial  interests  were  suffering. 
A  majority  of  the  slave  states  were  the  antagonists  of 
these  interests.  Political  ambition  and  mercantile  cu 
pidity  associated  these  two  facts  together,  and  the  fla 
gitious  idea  was  engendered  .that  by  surrendering  our 
liberty  we  might  have  a  tariff.  The  poison  of  this 
idea  was  first  openly  and  directly  infused  into  the  pub 
lic  mind  by  Mr.  Webster,  in  his  speech  at  the  Revere 
House,  April  29th,  1850,  when  he  said,  "  Neither  you 
nor  I  shall  see  the  legislation  of  the  country  proceed  in 
the  old  harmonious  way  until  the  discussions  in  Congress 
and  out  of  Congress  upon  the  subject  to  which  you 
have  alluded,  [slavery,]  shall  be  in  some  way  sup 
pressed.  Take  this  truth  home  with  you,  and  take  it 


526 

as  truth.  Until  something  can  be  done  to  allay  the 
feeling  now  separating  different  men  and  different  sec 
tions,  there  can  be  NO  USEFUL  AND  SATISFACTORY  legis 
lation  in  the  two  houses  of  Congress." 

Of  this  declaration  there  can  be  but  one  interpreta 
tion.  It  was  perfectly  understood  by  those  to  whom 
it  was  addressed.  It  says,  without  enigma  or  riddle, 
surrender  the  territories  to  the  incursions  of  the  slave 
states,  pacify  the  slave  power,  give  up  blood-bought 
rights  for  this  life,  and  Savior-bought  hopes  for  anoth 
er,  and  you  can  have  your  pay  in  a  cent  a  yard  on 
calico,  arid  a  cent  a  pound  on  iron.  And,  as  a  means 
of  accomplishing  this  object,  it  says  the  discussion  of 
the  slavery  question  must  be  "suppressed" 

From  that  time  until  the  close  of  the  last  session 
of  Congress,  in  every  form  in  which  so  intrinsically 
wicked  an  idea  could  be  set  forth  without  shocking 
not  only  all  principle,  but  all  decency,  this  idea  was 
inculcated  upon  the  public  mind  of  the  north,  espe 
cially  upon  the  cities.  In  unofficial  speeches  and 
letters,  Mr.  Webster  urged  this  seduction  more  and 
more  pointedly  and  earnestly,  until,  on  the  17th  of 
July,  1850,  in  the  last  speech  which  he  ever  made  in 
Congress,  he  appealed  to  the  senators  of  the  north, 
and  to  the  people  of  the  north,  in  language  as  explicit 
as  he  could  make  it,  to  adopt  the  compromise  meas 
ures,  to  take  even  the  abhorred  Fugitive  Slave  bill 
itself,  for  the  sake  of  the  money  to  be  made  out  of 
them.  Throughout  that  speech  he  held  out  the  apple 
of  temptation  before  their  eyes,  he  jingled  the  thirty 
pieces  of  silver  in  their  ears,  to  seduce  them  into  the 
surrender  of  liberty  for  pelf. 

I  appeal  to  the  common  knowledge  of  the  citizens 
of  Boston,  if,  during  the  last  summer,  it  was  not  an 
expression  as  familiar  to  their  lips  as  the  salutations 
of  the  day,  that  they  had  Mr.  Webster's  authority  for 
saying,  that  if  they  would  surrender  the  great  ques- 


527 

tions  involved  in  the  compromise,  they  could  have  a 
tariff. 

Now,  on  this  state  of  facts,  I  have  two  observations 
to  make,  — 

1st.  That  a  proposition  to  barter  or  to  jeopard  the 
liberty  of  our  fellow-beings  for  any  amount  of  money, 
however  great,  was  intrinsically  inhuman  and  wicked. 

2d.  That  every  new  concession  we  made  to  the 
south  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  for  the  sake  of  getting 
protection  for  our  manufactures  and  other  industrial 
interests,  only  impaired  and  postponed  our  chance  of 
getting  that  protection. 

For  the  correctness  of  the  first  of  these  propositions, 
I  appeal  to  every  man  who  has  a  conscience,  or  even 
any  elementary  ideas  of  right  or  wrong,  which  are 
not  smothered  by  his  interests  or  his  passions.  And 
for  the  second,  I  appeal  to  the  case  of  Texas  which 
defeated  the  tariff  of  '42,  and  to  the  fact  that,  though 
we  did  consent  to  all  the  detestable  provisions  of  the 
compromise,  —  slave  territories,  slave  states,  ten  mil 
lions  of  dollars  for  Texas,  Fugitive  Slave  bill,  and  all, 
—  yet  we  get  no  tariff,  and  have  now  no  rational  pros 
pect  of  one. 

That  the  surrender  of  all  our  glorious  patrimony  of 
free  principles  should  help  to  make  some  northern 
man  President,  I  can  readily  understand.  That  is 
intelligible.  Before  the  7th  of  March  speech,  it  was 
announced,  from  high  southern  sources,  that  they 
would  take  the  northern  man  for  the  next  presidential 
term  who  would  do  the  most  for  slavery  ;  and  since 
that  time,  the  same  declaration  has  been  reiterated. 
[See,  among  others,  Mr.  Toombs's  speech  before  the 
Georgia  Union  meeting.]  But  I  state  it  as  a  fact 
within  my  own  personal  knowledge,  that  there  was 
not  an  intelligent  man  in  Congress  who  was  not  impli 
cated,  on  the  one  side,  in  the  manufacture  of  goods, 
or,  on  the  other,  in  the  manufacture  of  presidents, 


528 

who  did  not  then  foresee  and  predict  that  every  for 
ward  step  we  took  towards  the  compromise  was  a 
step  backwards  from  protection.  And  we  now  have 
this  stubborn  fact  to  show  for  the  soundness  of  that 
opinion, — the  event  has  ratified  it.  They  have  not  ob 
tained  the  tariff  they  were  promised,  though  they  have 
given  for  it  the  price  of  blood. 

Now  I  wish  to  ask  the  manufacturers  and  commer 
cial  men  of  the  north,  whether,  if  they  had  seen,  —  as 
it  was  seen  by  every  unbiased  man  at  the  seat  of 
government,  —  that  upholding  the  compromise  would 
put  down  protection,  they  would  have  consented  to 
the  compromise  ?  And  a  further  question  which  I 
wish  to  put  to  all  Massachusetts  and  all  New  England 
is,  if,  during  the  last  year,  we  had  had  the  tariff  of 
1842  in  full  operation,  and  if  the  current  of  prosperity 
had  filled  the  deepest  channels  that  enterprise  and 
industry  had  cut  for  it,  whether  then  Massachusetts 
citizens  would  have  unsaid  and  retracted  all  the  noble 
things  they  have  been  saying  in  favor  of  liberty  for 
the  last  ten  years  ;  whether  then  the  Massachusetts 
press,  or  so  large  a  portion  of  it,  would  be  found 
openly  advocating  doctrines  which  they  have  always 
heretofore  professed  to  hold  in  utter  detestation  and 
abhorrence  ?  No  man  will  pretend  it.  If  we  had  had. 
the  tariff  of  '42  last  year,  the  compromise  measures 
never  could  have  passed,  and  it  would  have  been 
impossible  for  any  presidential  aspirant,  or  all  of  them 
together,  to  have  subdued  the  northern  mind  to  their 
acceptance. 

The  commercial  and  manufacturing  interests  of  the 
north,  then,  have  been  deceived,  grossly  deceived  and 
imposed  upon.  When  their  real  interests  were  all  on 
the  side  of  freedom,  they  have  been  made  to  believe 
that  it  would  promote  those  interests  to  unsay  all  they 
had  ever  said,  and  undo  all  they  had  ever  done  adverse 
to  slavery.  Their  chance  for  a  tariff  lay  in  standing 


529 

to  their  principles  like  men,  and  not  in  abandoning 
them  like  cowards.  President-making  has  been  the 
agency,  and  Cotton  has  been  the  instrument,  of  this 
deception.  It  has  been  said  that  the  Press  is  the 
fourth  estate  in  the  realm  ;  but  I  say  Cotton  is  the 
fourth  estate,  for  Cotton  subdues  the  Press.  The  eyes 
and  ears  and  nose  and  mouth  of  a  portion  of  our 
people  have  been  so  filled  with  cotton,  that  they  have 
come  to  consider  cotton  not  only  as  their  daily  bread, 
but  their  bread  of  life. 

Gentlemen,  whatever  convictions  or  doubts  there 
may  be  on  the  subject  of  Animal  Magnetism,  I  am  a 
firm  believer  in  Cotton  Magnetism.  The  southern 
planter  seems  to  possess  some  wizard  art,  unknown 
to  the  demonology  of  former  times,  by  which  he  im 
pregnates  his  bales  of  cotton  with  a  spirit  of  inhu 
manity,  with  a  contempt  for  all  the  dearest,  tenderest, 
holiest  ties  that  bind  man  to  man  and  heart  to  heart  ; 
he  fills  them  with  this  spirit  as  an  electrician  fills  a 
Leyden  jar,  and  then  he  sends  them  here  ;  and  if  the 
man  who  comes  within  the  circle  of  their  influence  is 
not  himself  filled  with  the  strong,  counteracting,  dis 
infecting  magnetism  of  duty  and  truth,  of  love  to  God 
and  love  to  man,  he  is  overcome  and  subdued  by  the 
infernal  spell;  he  is  brought  into  "communication" 
with  the  southern  sorcerer,  and  into  subjection  to  his 
will ;  and  then  he  seems  bereft  of  reason  and  con 
science,  he  belies  his  Pilgrim  parentage,  talks  gibber 
ish  about  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,  kneels,  lies 
down,  eats  dirt,  and  says  to  his  southern  master,  as  Ba 
laam's  beast  said  to  him,  "  Am  I  not  thine  ass  upon 
which  thou  hast  ridden  ever  since  I  was  thine?" 

Still  worse  is  it,  when  this  cotton,  so  diabolically 
impregnated,  gets  beneath  the  rich  velvet  seats  and 
embossed  cushions  of  the  pulpit ;  —  unless,  indeed,  a 
double  measure  of  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  shall  descend 
upon  the  preacher  and  exorcise  both  him  and  it,  of  the 
45 


530 

evil  spirit  it  contains.  When  the  soul  of  the  clergy 
man  is  struck  with  this  cotton  magnetism,  he  grows 
delirious  over  his  Bible,  ignores  the  new  dispensation, 
seeks  out  all  the  pro-slavery  parts  of  the  old,  discards 
Jesus  Christ  as  his  example,  arid  the  precepts  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  the  law  of  his  ministrations,  and  proves 
himself  a  pagan,  discoursing  paganism  in  a  Christian 
pulpit. 

God  grant  that  this  kind  of  cotton  may  never  stuff 
the  cushions  of  our  judges !  I  fear  we  are  not  wholly 
out  of  danger  of  so  unspeakable  a  calamity.  Give  us 
the  old  English  woolsack  for  them,  within  whose 
magic  presence  the  chains  of  the  slave  drop  from  his 
limbs,  and  he  is  gloriously  transfigured  into  a  man. 

Compare  the  newspapers  of  our  cities  now  with 
what  they  were  only  one  short  twelvemonth  ago,  and 
see  what  demoralization  cotton  can  work  when  it  gets 
into  editorial  chairs. 

As  for  those  slave-catching  commissioners  who  as 
sume  to  exercise  the  functions  of  judges,  to  abolish 
human  liberty,  and  to  find  property  in  the  bodies  and 
souls  of  men,  but  are  no  more  a  judge  than  an  image 
"made  after  supper  of  a  cheese-paring"  is  a  man, — 
as  for  them,  I  say,  they  seem  to  have  this  virus  the 
natural  way  ;  and  if  all  moral  diagnosis  does  not  fail, 
it  would  be  found,  on  an  anatomical  dissection  of  their 
hearts,  that  their  right  and  left  auricle  and  their  right 
and  left  ventricle  were  only  four  cotton  bolls. 

But  I  believe  that  the  reign  of  Cotton  is  to  be 
short-lived.  Improvements  in  the  arts  give  confident 
promise  that  some  new  textile  substance  will  soon  be 
discovered  which  will  supersede  this  slave-made  and 
slave-making  material.  Even  should  this  hope  fail, 
every  body  sees  what  an  unnatural  attitude  of  power 
and  strength  the  cotton-producing  states  now  occupy. 
Extending  over  only  a  small  area  of  territory,  which 
you  can  cover  on  the  map  with  your  hand,  they  raise 


531 

a  staple  which  clothes,  more  or  less,  a  great  part  of 
the  world  ;  while  there  are  Brazil,  Egypt,  India,  and 
regions  of  unknown  vastness  in  Africa,  to  all  of  which, 
or  nearly  all  of  which,  the  plant  is  indigenous.  Either 
then  by  the  progress  of  the  arts,  or  by  an  extension 
of  cultivation,  the  majesty  of  Cotton  will  soon  be  de 
throned  ;  and  then,  then,  how  will  these  men  appear, 
historically,  who  are  now  willing  to  trample  upon 
human  rights,  and  to  send  men,  women,  and  children 
into  all  the  horrors  of  southern  bondage  for  the  tem 
porary  profits  which  cotton  can  bestow  ? 

I  rejoice  that  this  reference  to  the  demoralizing 
power  of  interest  gives  me  an  opportunity  to  bestow 
well-deserved  honor  and  praise  upon  a  class  of  men 
who  have  nobly  withstood  its  temptations.  Not  every 
man  engaged  in  manufactures  or  in  commerce  has 
yielded  to  the  seductions  of  this  tempter.  There  are 
many  noble  exceptions.  I  have  in  my  mind  one  of  my 
own  constituents  largely  interested  in  manufactures, 
who  told  me  last  summer  that  half  his  spindles  were 
lying  idle,  and  property  that  should  have  yielded 
income  was  incurring  cost  ;  "  but,"  said  he,  "  do  you 
see  them  all  stop,  and  the  mills  decay  and  go  down 
stream,  before  you  vote  for  that  compromise."  Another 
of  my  constituents  told  me  he  was  largely  interested 
in  three  ships,  then  at  sea ;  but  declared  he  would  see 
them  all  sink  to  its  bottom  before  he  would  disgrace 
the  country  by  passing  the  Fugitive  Slave  bill.  These 
are  but  specimens  of  that  noble  spirit  which  was 
expressed  with  such  Spartan  terseness  and  vigor  by 
Bowen  &  McNamee,  of  New  York,  when  the  foul 
panders  to  southern  slavery  threatened  them  with  a 
loss  of  custom.  Said  they,  "  Our  goods,  and  not  our 
principles,  are  in  the  market." 

O,  how  these  declarations  contrast  with  what  a 
manufacturer  in  a  neighboring  county  is  reported  to 
have  said,  —  that  if  he  could  work  his  mills  any 


532 

cheaper  with  slave  labor  than  with  free,  he  would 
employ  slaves  !  And  what,  also,  as  I  am  credibly 
informed,  another  has  said,  —  "  The  south  want  slaves 
to  raise  cotton  to  sell ;  we  want  slaves  to  raise  cotton 
to  manufacture  ;  therefore,  we  must  unite  with  the 
south  to  uphold  slavery."  Now,  I  believe  these  things 
to  have  been  said  ;  but  it  is  of  no  consequence 
whether  they  were  said  or  not  ;  we  know  they  have 
been  acted.  Every  man  who  upholds  this  Fugitive 
Slave  law  acts  them,  whatever  his  language  may  be. 

The  compromise  was  forced  through  Congress  partly 
by  government  interference,  and  partly  by  the  delusive 
hope  of  a  tariff.  An  appeal  is  now  made,  in  behalf  of 
the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  to  the  same  mercenary  mo 
tives.  It  is  said,  if  opposition  be  made  to  this  law, 
however  legal  or  constitutional  such  opposition  may 
be,  we  shall  lose  southern  custom.  Base  and  infamous 
appeal !  Such  men  are  made  of  the  stuff  of  the  tories 
of  the  revolution.  Even  if  this  appeal  were  true,  it 
would  be  one  that  no  honorable  man  could  hear  with 
out  indignation.  But  it  is  not  true.  The  south  must 
have  their  goods  from  somewhere,  and  our  industrious 
artisans  will  make  them,  whoever  the  go-betweens 
may  be.  Will  the  south  go  bare-headed  and  bare 
footed  and  unkilted,  because  they  cannot  have  a  law 
to  catch  freemen  and  slaves  promiscuously  ?  But  it  is 
said  the  south  will  abandon  their  slothful  habits,  be 
come  industrious,  and  manufacture  for  themselves.  I 
wish  they  would.  It  would  be  most  fortunate  for  us. 
They  would  then  have  the  means  of  buying  more 
from  the  north,  and  paying  us  better  for  what  they 
do  buy.  Instead  of  spending  only  the  money  which 
their  slaves  earn,  they  would  then  have  money  to 
spend  earned  by  the  whites,  and  would  become  better 
customers  for  those  ever  new  forms  of  commodities 
which  our  industry  and  inventive  skill,  while  we  keep 
our  schoolhouses  in  operation,  will  always  be  able  to 
supply. 


533 

Now,  fellow-citizens,  I  have  gone  into  these  consid 
erations  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  and  of  meas 
uring  the  extent  and  the  efficacy  of  the  motives 
brought  hy  onr  opponents  to  bear  against  ns.  You 
see  they  are  mercenary,  almost  exclusively  so.  As  for 
that  bugbear  of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  I  say,  with 
out  fear  of  contradiction,  that  no  practical  man  has 
ever  believed  in  it  for  a  day.  United  States  stocks  at  a 
hundred  and  sixteen,von  the  eve  of  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union  !  The  whole  South  Carolina,  and  Mississippi, 
and  Texas  delegations  in  Congress  contending  for 
every  local  advantage,  for  the  establishment  of  new 
United  States  courts,  for  the  increase  of  salaries,  for 
appointments  at  home  and  abroad,  as  though  the  Union 
had  been  just  insured  for  a  thousand  years  !  Show 
me  one  intelligent  man  in  the  whole  country  who  has 
sold  his  stocks  or  his  farm,  or  changed  his  residence,  or 
altered  his  course  of  life  in  any  respect,  through  fear 
that  the  Union  was  about  to  be  dissolved.  I  think 
some  persons  may  have  left  South  Carolina,  to  get  rid 
of  the  clamor  about  dissolving  it.  Why,  what  would 
the  English  national  debt  be  worth  under  any  well- 
founded  apprehension  that  the  British  monarchy  was 
crumbling  to  pieces  ?  There  would  not  be  a  pound 
of  government  securities  that  could  not  be  bought  for 
a  penny.  Confidence  in  the  stability  of  our  Union 
has  not  only  pervaded  this  country,  but  other  countries. 
The  great  bankers  abroad  who  deal  in  our  stocks  have 
never  changed  their  terms  one  mill  in  a  million  of 
dollars,  through  any  such  idle  fear.  They  are  the  men 
whose  barometers  presage  political  storms.  With  such 
facts  before  us,  to  say  that  the  Union  has  been  in 
danger  is  as  absurd  as  to  say  that  a  whirlwind  is 
raging  when  the  leaf  of  the  aspen  is  pendulous,  and 
cannot  be  seen  to  move.  If  the  south  wishes  to  dis 
solve  the  Union,  let  them  do  it,  and  at  the  end  of 
thirty  years  there  will  be  no  slave  in  all  their  borders. 
45* 


534 

The  slaves  will  have  made  a  new  Jamaica  or  a  new 
St.  Domingo  of  it,  as  the  masters  shall  behave  them 
selves.  No,  this  is  nothing  but  a  clumsy  trick  of  the 
politicians ;  and  if  any  one  of  them  could  be  nomi 
nated  for  the  presidency,  we  should  hear  nothing  more 
from  him  about  any  deluge  which  threatens  to  sub 
merge  the  Union.  They  profess  peculiar  love  for  the 
Union.  Their  clamorous  notes  bring  to  mind  what 
Dr.  Franklin  remarked  of  self-righteous  people.  He 
said  they  always  reminded  him  of  scarcity  of  provis 
ions  ;  —  those  who  had  enough  said  nothing  about  it ; 
it  was  the  destitute  who  made  all  the  clamor. 

I  say,  then,  the  only  remaining  motive  with  which 
our  adversaries  can  work  is  the  loss  of  southern  trade. 
This  interests  but  few  of  our  people.  The  farmers 
are  not  interested  in  it.  The  mechanics  and  artisans 
are  not.  The  operatives  in  our  mills  are  not.  All 
our  substantial,  industrious  classes  are  above  this  temp 
tation,  and  would  spurn  it  if  they  were  not  above  it. 
The  Fugitive  Sla-ve  law  champions,  then,  can  make 
no  more  converts  among  them.  Let  us,  then,  continue 
to  oppose  this  law  in  all  constitutional  modes.  Let  us 
explain  its  religious  and  moral  bearings  to  the  Christian. 
Let  us  tell  the  patriot  of  the  disgrace  it  brings  upon 
our  country.  Let  us  show  to  the  working-man  that 
those  who  are  ready  to  make  slaves  of  his  fellow-beings 
for  lucre  will  be  equally  ready  to  make  a  slave  of  him 
whenever  interest  shall  supply  the  temptation. 

Fellow-citizens,  it  has  been  asked  why  we  are  as 
sembled  here  to-day,  and  not  in  the  Hall  consecrated  to 
liberty.  It  is  because  the  doors  of  that  hall  have  been 
closed  to  Liberty  knocking  for  admission.  But  there  is 
a  melancholy  propriety  in  this.  When  the  court  house 
is  in  chains,  Faneuil  Hall  may  well  be  dumb.  Those 
chains  which  girt  the  courts  of  justice  are  but  typical 
of  the  chains  which  tyrannous  men  are  striving  to  put 
upon  our  lips.  This  is  not  the  first  temple  that  has 


535 

been  unrighteously  invaded  and  taken  possession  of  by 
money  changers  and  those  who  sold  doves,  —  doves  ! 
doves!!  No,  not  doves, — but  men,  women,  and 
children.  But  I  trust  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when 
a  better  spirit  shall  enter  their  doors,  and  shall  scourge 
out  their  invaders  with  cords,  smaller  or  larger,  as  the 
exigencies  of  the  case  may  require. 


536 


SPEECH 

DELIVERED  AT  WORCESTER,  SEPTEMBER  16,  1851,  ON  TAKING 
THE  CHAIR  AS  PRESIDENT  OF  THE  FREE  SOIL  STATE  CON 
VENTION. 

GENTLEMEN  OF  THE  CONVENTION  ; 

Accept  my  thanks.  It  would  be  an  honor  at  any 
time  to  stand  in  this  position  before  a  body  of  men  so 
large  in  their  number  and  so  influential  by  their  re 
spectability.  But,  gentlemen,  at  this  hour  of  trial,  at 
this  time  of  peril  to  great  principles,  when  the  lights 
upon  earth  seem  to  be  going  out  around  us,  and  we 
must  look  for  guidance  to  the  lights  above,  —  at  this 
hour,  I  say,  of  trial  and  of  peril,  it  is  an  especial 
honor  to  be  called  to  a  post  of  duty.  The  position 
of  the  friends  of  freedom  at  the  present  time  reminds 
me  of  a  beautiful  sentiment  expressed  by  one  of  the 
noblest  of  the  old  Roman  philosophers,  who  said  that 
those  who  were  called  to  fill  stations  of  danger  and 
self-sacrifice  should  thank  God  for  the  honor  of  being 
deemed  worthy  of  such  a  trust.* 

Gentlemen,  it  was  not  until  this  morning,  and 
since  sunrise,  that  I  was  waited  upon  by  a  delegation 
from  your  state  committee,  requesting  my  presence  on 
this  occasion.  They  knew,  and  you  all  know,  how 
strongly  my  heart  throbs,  even  at  the  mention  of  the 
great  principles  for  which  you  contend.  They  knew, 
as  you  all  know,  how  happy  I  should  be  if  I  could  do 
any  thing  to  deepen  or  to  diffuse  a  feeling  of  devotion 
to  human  freedom. 

*  Seneca.     [The  passage  is  quoted  in  the  Dedication,  pp.  ix.,  x.] 


537 

But,  gentlemen,  there  were  certain  circumstances 
connected  with  my  position  which  seemed  to  make 
it  necessary  for  me  to  say  to  your  delegation,  that,  if  I 
should  appear  here  to-day,  it  should  be  with  an  entire 
privilege  to  speak  out  my  mind  fully  on  any  political 
subject,  and  to  say  in  what  relation  I  stand  to  the  present 
condition  of  public  affairs,  both  state  and  national. 

I  say,  then,  gentlemen,  that  I  stand  where  I  have 
always  stood,  holding  the  principles  of  human  freedom 
first  and  foremost  in  my  regards,  and,  after  these,  our 
pecuniary,  or  merely  worldly  interests  ;  holding,  ac 
cording  to  the  order  in  which  they  are  mentioned  in 
the  constitution  of  the  United  States,  "  life  and  liber 
ty  "  to  be  before  "property."  I  stand  where  I  stood 
in  1848,  when  I  was  first  elected  to  Congress  ;  arid 
where  my  recorded  votes  and  speeches  show  me  to 
have  stood  through  all  the  struggles  of  1849  and  '50. 
I  stand  on  the  same  principles  yet.  If  other  men 
have  seen  fit  to  go  off  to  the  right  hand  or  to  the  left, 
I  remain  where  I  was.  And  if  any  individual  of  any 
party, —  Whig,  Democrat,  or  by  whatever  other  appel 
lation  he  may  be  known,  —  shall  ever  return  from  his 
wanderings  to  the  good  old  homestead  of  Massachusetts 
principles,  —  Free  Soil,  Free  Speech,  and  Free  Men, 
—  there,  in  that  immortal  birthplace  of  human  liberty, 
he  will  find  me,  early  in  the  morning  and  late  at  night, 
hard  at  work,  to  maintain  the  honor  of  the  Pilgrims 
and  the  principles  of  our  revolutionary  sires. 

Gentlemen,  the  perusal  of  the  address  and  resolu 
tions  put  forth  by  the  Whig  State  Convention  at  Spring 
field,  last  week,  brought  me  here.  It  seems  to  me  that 
no  true  lover  of  human  freedom  can  read  that  address 
and  those  resolutions  intelligently,  and  understand  their 
full  scope  and  bearing,  without  being  struck  down  by 
conviction,  as  suddenly  as  was  St.  Paul, —  though  the 
light  and  the  voice  come  from  an  opposite  quarter. 
Whatever  the  design  of  those  papers  may  have  been, 


538 

their  whole  argument  and  office  are  to  wheel  the  Whig 
party  into  line,  to  fight  the  battles  of  slavery. 

Under  these  circumstances,  I  do  not  ask  with  a 
certain  distinguished  individual,  on  the  prospective 
breaking  up  of  parties,  "Where  am  I  to  go?"  I 
believe  I  do  but  echo  the  sentiments  of  thousands  of 
as  good  and  true  Whigs  as  can  be  found  in  this  com 
monwealth,  (and  there  are  none  better  any  where,) 
when  I  say  that,  let  others  go  where  they  will,  here, 
here,  on  the  old  Whig  platform  of  opposition  to  the 
extension  of  slavery,  either  into  New  Mexico  or  into 
New  England  ;  of  freedom  for  the  District  of  Colum 
bia  ;  and  in  favor  of  the  old  guaranties  of  habeas  cor 
pus  and  trial  by  jury,  —  here  /  remain. 

Gentlemen,  the  Free  Soil  party,  as  the  name  im 
ports,  is  the  party  of  freedom.  The  cardinal  principle 
of  their  creed  is,  that  "  all  men  are  created  free  and 
equal,"  and  that  they  have  an  inalienable  right  to 
"life,  liberty,  property,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness." 
Their  faith  consists  in  the  assurance  that,  in  the  good 
providence  of  God,  the  day  will  yet  come  when  the 
blessedness  of  their  creed  will  be  realized  among  men  ; 
and  by  their  works  they  seek  to  hasten  the  advent  of 
that  glorious  day. 

A  party  of  Freedom  has  existed  in  all  ages  of  the 
world,  but  a  mightier  party  of  oppression  has  been 
arrayed  against  it.  And  though  the  lovers  of  human 
liberty  have  consisted  of  the  greatest  and  best  men 
who  have  ever  lived,  yet  they  have  been  overborne 
by  violence,  crushed  and  trampled  upon  by  power, 
buried  in  dungeons,  gibbeted  on  scaffolds,  burnt  at 
the  stake  !  God,  like  the  householder  who  sent  ser 
vants  to  his  vineyard  from  a  far  country,  has,  from 
age  to  age,  sent  great  and  mighty  souls  into  the  world 
to  redeem  it  from  oppression  ;  but  the  oppressor  has 
seized  and  mutilated  and  martyred  them,  with  every 
form  of  ignominy  towards  the  messengers  themselves, 


539 

and  of  impiety  towards  the  Lord  who  sent  them.  The 
possessors  of  power  and  wealth  seek  to  perpetuate 
these  advantages  in  their  families,  their  clan,  or  their 
caste  ;  and  over  almost  all  the  earth  they  have  estab 
lished  dynasties  for  governments,  landed  or  moneyed 
feudalisms  for  lords,  and  entails  for  individual  families. 

That  we  may  see  how  fearful  a  thing  this  spirit  of 
oppression  is,  not  only  for  its  cruelties,  hut  for  the 
tenacity  of  its  malignant  life,  let  it  be  remembered 
that  the  world  had  existed  almost  six  thousand  years 
before  the  principles  of  human  liberty,  civil  and  eccle 
siastical,  were  clearly  and  fully  set  forth  even  on 
paper.  This  was  first  done  by  Mr.  Jefferson,  in  1776, 
in  the  Declaration  of  American  Independence  ;  and 
every  body  knows  how  intensely  the  same  partisans 
who  are  now  summoning  their  forces  against  the  party 
of  Freedom  have  hated  him  for  his  glorious  efforts  in 
favor  of  the  freedom  of  man  ;  how  they  pursued  him 
with  maledictions  to  his  grave,  and  still  break  through 
the  sanctity  of  the  tomb  to  blacken  his  memory. 

The  immortal  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  were  partially  embodied  in  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States.  But,  as  the  preexisting  meta 
physics  and  mythology  of  the  heathen  nations  min 
gled  with  the  pure  spirit  of  Christianity,  and  corrupted 
it,  so  the  preexisting  laws  and  usages  of  oppression 
deformed  to  some  extent  the  doctrines  of  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  and  stamped  some  hideous  fea 
tures  upon  the  otherwise  fair  face  of  the  federal  con 
stitution.  But  such  a  preponderance  of  good  did  that 
instrument  contain,  that  it  was  adopted  by  all  the 
states.  It  was  adopted,  however,  with  the  universal 
understanding  that  the  healing  influence  of  time  would 
purge  a\vay  the  virus  of  the  disease  ;  and  with  no 
apprehension  of  the  now  undeniable  fact,  that  the 
disease  would  be  allowed  to  spread,  like  a  gangrene, 
over  the  healthy  parts.  Had  our  fathers  foreseen  that 


540 

the  pro -slavery  clauses  in  the  constitution  would  prove 
a  curse  to  whole  classes  and  races  of  men  entitled  to 
protection  under  it,  that  they  would  be  a  shame  to  its 
administrators,  and  an  opprobrium,  throughout  the  civ 
ilized  world,  to  the  name  of  Republic.  —  it  would  be 
impious  towards  their  memories  to  say  they  would 
ever  have  ratified  it.  But  instead  of  the  sounder 
parts  diffusing  healthful  influences,  and  gradually  erad 
icating  the  disease,  the  diseased  parts  have  shot  their 
infection  through  all  the  veins  and  organs  of  the  body 
politic,  until,  from  the  heart  to  the  extremities,  there 
is  not  now  to  be  found  an  uncon laminated  spot. 

Or  to  leave  metaphor  for  literal  speech  :  The  consti 
tution  of  the  United  States  gave  the  most  comprehen 
sive  and  fundamental  guaranties  in  favor  of  freedom, 
with  here  and  there  only  an  exception  in  behalf  of 
slavery.  It  allowed  "  persons "  who  were  held  to 
service  or  labor  and  who  should  escape  into  other 
states  to  be  retaken,  but  it  also  secured  the  trial  by 
jury  to  every  "  person  "  who  should  claim  it  on  any 
question  of  life  or  liberty,  and  on  all  questions  of 
property  even  down  to  the  paltry  sum  of  twenty  dol 
lars.  Yet  there  is  not  now,  in  the  United  States,  a 
single  spot,  from  ocean  to  ocean,  where  a  free  man  is 
free  from  danger  of  being  kidnapped  and  carried  into 
horrible  bondage  for  himself  and  his  posterity  forever; 
or,  —  what  is  as  keenly  torturing  to  every  mind  pene 
trated  by  the  spirit  and  amenable  to  the  precepts  of 
the  gospel,  —  of  being  called  upon,  under  penalty  of 
fines  and  fetters,  to  surrender  his  soul  to  this  accursed 
work. 

Now,  as  a  true  disciple  of  Christ  ought  to  feel  if  he 
saw  the  imbruting  dogmas  and  Moloch  rites  of  hea 
thenism  returning  to  invade  Christendom  and  to  extin 
guish  the  lights  of  the  gospel,  so  should  every  lover  of 
liberty  feel  when  he  sees  the  fell  spirit  of  slavery  re 
gaining  its  lost  empire  over  the  institutions  of  freedom. 


541 

The  analogy  between  the  present  condition  of  this 
country  and  that  of  Europe  is  too  striking  not  to  at 
tract  attention.  In  1848,  there  was  a  great  uprising 
of  the  friends  of  liberty  in  both  hemispheres.  Thou 
sands  and  tens  of  thousands  sought  to  redress  the 
wrongs  of  humanity,  —  by  the  cartridge  box  there,  and 
by  the  ballot  box  here.  The  phalanx  of  tyranny  and  of 
mammon  was  unprepared  for  so  sudden  an  onset,  and 
for  a  moment  their  ranks  were  broken  by  the  violence 
of  the  shock.  But  despotism  and  wealth  have  almost 
inconceivable  advantages  in  a  contest  with  the  honest 
and  toiling  millions.  In  Europe,  they  have  the  mili 
tary  force, —  a  soulless  machine,  always  ready  to  be 
turned  against  the  people  who  are  made  to  maintain  it. 
They  have  also  the  whole  ecclesiastical  power,  which 
leans  upon  the  government  for  support,  and  fights 
with  spiritual  weapons  for  the  masters  whose  plunder 
it  shares. 

In  this  country,  owing  to  our  different  institu 
tions,  the  means  of  quelling  the  spirit  of  liberty  have 
been  different.  The  administration  have  an  immense 
amount  of  patronage  at  their  disposal.  They  give 
contracts  to  the  amount  of  millions,  and  select  the 
contractors.  Directly,  or  indirectly,  they  appoint  some 
thirty  thousand  office-holders ;  and.  by  a  lamentable 
reduplication  of  the  powers  of  evil,  they  control  twice 
or  four  times  that  number  who  are  aspirants  for  office. 
Their  influence  bought  over  the  slave  power,  by  sur 
rendering  all  our  new  territories  to  the  invasion  of 
slavery,  and  by  giving  fifty  thousand  square  miles  of 
free  New  Mexican  territory  to  be  turned  into  Texan 
slave  territory,  thus  adding  to  the  already  enormous 
size  of  that  slave-begotten  state.  Ten  millions  of  dol 
lars  of  almost  worthless  Texan  stock  were  raised  to  par 
value  by  the  signature  of  Millard  Fillmore.  During 
the  whole  pendency  of  the  compromise  measures, 
agents  and  brokers,  reputed  to  be  interested  in  this 
46 


542 

stock,  hovered  about  the  purlieus  of  the  national  Capi 
tol.  The  stock  was  transferred  from  hand  to  hand, 
without  record  and  without  daylight,  so  that,  besides 
the  accomplices,  Heaven  and  Satan  only  know  into 
whose  possession  it  came.  And,  as  though  the  means 
of  patronage  and  seducement  on  so  magnificent  a  scale 
were  not  sufficient,  a  private  purse,  almost  up  to  the 
figure  of  fifty  thousand  dollars,  was  presented  to  the 
"  foremost  man  of  all  this  world  "  in  his  apostasy  to 
the  principles  of  human  liberty.  These,  fellow-citi 
zens,  were  among  the  agencies  and  seductions  which 
caused  the  discomfiture  of  the  friends  of  freedom  in  the 
national  contest  of  1850.  The  tyrants  of  Europe  had 
no  vacant  lands,  or  Texas  stocks,  wherewith  to  put 
down  humanity,  and  so  they  used  gunpowder  and  bay 
onets.  Our  slave  power  and  its  northern  allies,  being 
debarred  by  the  principles  of  our  government  from 
bullets  and  bayonets,  accomplished  their  work  by 
the  Judas  articles  of  scrip  and  u  dotation."  To 
carry  out  these  purposes,  the  generals  Haynau  and 
Radetsky  were  found  there  ;  the  senators,  Webster 
and  Cass.  here. 

The  origin  and  the  present  necessity  of  the  Free  Soil 
party  may  be  briefly  stated.  Some  years  previous  to 
the  annexation  of  Texas,  an  apprehension  existed  that 
that  great  breach  of  the  constitution  and  outrage  upon 
northern  principles  and  feelings  were  meditated.  Mr. 
John  Q,uincy  Adams  sounded  the  alarm  ;  but  men 
were  so  engrossed  by  their  business,  and  by  their 
pultry  local  and  temporary  political  strifes,  that  even 
his  voice,  potent  and  prophetic  as  it  was,  passed  by 
unheeded.  Some  respect,  however,  was  due,  at  least 
from  policy  if  not  from  principle,  to  the  many  humble 
but  earnest  opponents  of  so  flagrant  a  wrong.  Before 
the  consummation  of  that  iniquity,  the  Massachusetts 
legislature  passed  strong  resolutions  against  it.  The 
question  was  taken  by  yeas  and  nays,  and  all  the 


543 

Whigs  and  almost  all  the  Democrats  in  the  general 
court  recorded  their  names  on  the  side  of  the  constitu 
tion  and  liberty.  But  the  slave  power  then  had  pos 
session  of  all  the  departments  of  the  national  govern 
ment,  and  under  the  auspices  of  a  slaveholding  Presi 
dent,  a  breach  was  made  in  the  walls  of  the  constitution 
wide  enough  to  let  in  a  foreign  government,  with  all 
its  burden  of  slavery  on  its  back.  Yet,  notwithstand 
ing  this  perfidy  to  all  the  principles  of  a  true  democracy, 
such  was  the  external  pressure  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  members  of  the  Democratic  party,  that  but  few  of 
them  abandoned  its  ranks.  They  "acquiesced"  as 
the  modern  phrase  is,  when  any  thing  specially  iniqui 
tous  is  to  be  sanctioned.  They  were  told,  as  the 
Whigs  are  now  told  in  regard  to  the  compromise  and 
the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  that  the  act  was  done  and 
irrevocable.  The  merchants  were  told,  as  the  Whig 
merchants  now  are,  that  the  crime  of  extending  slavery 
would  at  least  be  attended  by  increased  profits  of  trade. 
The  manufacturers  were  told,  as  the  Whig  manufac 
turers  now  are,  that  if  the  number  of  slaves  were  in 
creased  at  the  south,  it  must  create  an  increased  de 
mand  for  whips  and  negro  cloths.  And  the  mere 
blind  political  partisans  were  told,  as  the  same  class  of 
Whigs  are  now,  that  if  God  designed  to  stop  the 
heaven-defying  enormity  of  spreading  slavery  over  this 
continent,  he  must  do  it  in  some  way  consistent  with 
the  integrity  of  the  Democratic  party.  Precisely  the 
arguments  which  were  then  used  to  seduce  and  corrupt 
the  Democratic  party  into  "acquiescence  "  are  used  by 
leading  Whigs  and  Whig  presses  now  for  the  same 
unhallowed  purpose.  They  are  alike,  except  that  in 
the  one  case  there  was  the  crime  of  originality,  and  in 
the  other,  the  meanness  of  plagiarism. 

But  from  the  fatal  day  of  the  annexation  of  Texas, 
thousands  and  thousands  of  honest  and  intelligent 
Democrats,  though  still  remaining  true  to  what  they 


544 

believed  to  be  the  principles  of  the  party,  became  alien 
ated  from  its  leaders.  From  that  day,  the  claims  of 
the  party  lay  lightly,  but  the  sins  of  the  party  heavily, 
upon  their  souls  ;  and  some  there  were  who,  like  Daniel 
of  old,  went  into  their  chambers  three  times  every  day, 
and,  throwing  open  the  windows  which  looked  towards 
the  Jerusalem  of  liberty,  prayed  aloud  to  the  true  God, 
although  within  hearing  of  the  wild  beasts  which  had 
been  prepared  to  devour  them. 

The  Whig  party  at  the  north,  and  particularly  in 
Massachusetts,  flourished  under  the  reaction  of  the 
Texas  fraud.  Some  of  its  leaders,  it  is  true,  shouted  a 
welcome  to  Texas,  though  yet  afar  oif ;  and,  even  while 
she  stood  outside  of  the  Union,  they  threw  their  arms 
around  her  blood-besmeared  form,  hideous  as  Milton's 
picture  of  Sin,  with  all  her  hell-hound  progeny  of  future 
slave  states  howling  in  her  womb,  and  gave  her  a  fra 
ternal  embrace ;  and  when  the  time  came,  they  were 
also  ready  to  vote  men  and  money,  —  human  blood 
and  human  souls, — for  the  robber  atrocities  of  the 
Mexican  war,  which  a  majority  of  the  House  of  Rep 
resentatives  in  Congress,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Ashmun, 
of  Massachusetts,  declared  to  be  "  unnecessarily  and 
unconstitutionally  commenced."  My  friends,  in  your 
observations  of  men,  you  will  find  there  are  some 
moral  nonentities,  — political  availabilities  though  they 
may  be,  —  who  can  listen  most  sanctimoniously  to  the 
Saint  Stephens,  when  they  prophesy,  arid  then  hold 
the  clothes  of  the  Lyrichers  who  stone  them  to  death. 

During  all  this  period,  however,  the  managers  and 
the  presses  of  the  Whig  party  discoursed  and  printed 
very  edifying  anti-slavery  homilies.  As  the  harvest 
months  came  on,  an  anti-slavery  zeal  became  an 
epidemic  among  them ;  and  sporadic  cases  happened 
at  other  times,  depending  upon  the  days  and  places 
appointed  by  the  governor  and  council  for  special  elec 
tions.  Every  body  remembers  how  the  Boston  Atlas 


545 

used  to  stir  up  the  pure  minds  of  the  Democratic  party 
by  way  of  remembrance,  by  publishing,  — periodically, 
as  they  say,  and  sometimes  oftener, — the  names  of 
those  Democratic  senators  or  representatives  in  our 
general  court  who  had  voted  for  freedom  and  against 
Texas,  in  order  to  show  their  flagrant  inconsistency 
in  still  adhering  to  a  party  that  had  been  false  to  liberty. 
That  paper  has  done  some  good  service  to  our  cause, 
especially  in  holding  up  for  a  long  time  the  Fugitive 
Slave  act  to  reprobation,  while  the  other  Whig  presses 
in  the  city  were  daily  striving  to  hide  its  atrocities  from 
public  view,  and  to  defend  what  they  could  not  hide. 
I  trust  the  reluctant  and  struggling  editors  of  that  paper 
are  not  to  be  overcome  by  the  mammon  of  slavery, 
whatever  disguises  it  may  assume  or  compulsion  it  may 
use.  I  trust  the  slave  power  will  never  be  able  to  use 
towards  them  the  language  which  hell's  portress  ad 
dressed  to  Satan  :  — 

"  At  first  they  called  me  Sin,  and  for  a  sign 
Portentous  held  me  ;  but,  familiar  grown, 
I  pleased,  and  \vith  attractive  graces  won 
T/ic  most  averse  ;  thee  chiefly" 

Those  prosperous  days  of  the  Massachusetts  Whigs 
continued  until  1848.  They  thrived  in  basket  and  in 
store,  until,  like  Jeshtirun,  they  waxed  fat,  and,  at 
least  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  congressional  districts,  they 
performed  some  very  hard  kicking.  Then  came  the 
nomination  of  General  Taylor.  General  Taylor  was  a 
Louisiana  slaveholder.  He  had  been  the  hero  of  the 
Florida  war,  —  as  great  an  outrage  against  a  race  as 
ever  Rome  or  Russia  committed.  He  had  been  a 
prominent,  and,  as  many  believed,  a  willing  instrument 
in  spilling  the  innocent  blood  of  a  sister  republic. 
Even  should  the  executive  divest  him  of  military  com 
mand,  or  he  should  grow  too  old  for  service,  it  was 
universally  known  that  there  was  a  full  black  battalion 
46* 


546 

on  his  own  plantation  which  he  would  always  com 
mand.  The  south  demanded  his  nomination  abso 
lutely.  They  would  hear  no  terms,  and  would  offer 
no  terms.  In  the  northern  canvass  it  was  strongly  as 
serted  that  he  had  written  a  letter,  saying  in  so  many 
words  that  he  would  not  veto  the  Wilmot  proviso;  but 
that  letter  was  so  warily  kept  in  a  certain  unmention 
able  part  of  a  Whig  merchant's  wardrobe,  that  neither 
Mesmerizers  nor  spiritual  rappers  could  read  it  aloud  to 
the  people. 

Hence  all  omens  foreboded  evil.  Those  which  we 
looked  for  on  the  earth  augured  ill  to  our  earthly  inter 
ests  ;  and  those  which  we  looked  for  above  were  in  the 
wrong  quarter  of  the  heavens.  The  character  of  many 
of  General  Taylor's  friends  brought  distrust  upon  him 
self.  He  owed  his  election  far  more  to  the  repulsion 
which  good  men  felt  towards  his  opponent,  [General 
Cass,]  than  to  any  attraction  they  had  towards  him. 

It  was  an  occasion  that  tried  the  sagacity  and  the 
discretion  of  honest  men,  and  I  have  always  felt  great 
charity  both  for  his  advocates  and  his  opponents  ;  — 
each  being  able  to  make  out  so  plausible  a  case.  The 
course  which  the  Connecticut  clergyman  took  on  that 
occasion  always  commended  itself  to  me.  He  voted 
the  Taylor  electoral  ticket,  but  indorsed  a  prayer  on 
the  back  of  his  ballot,  saying  that  he  was  painfully 
uncertain  as  to  the  course  of  duty,  and  imploring 
that  his  vote  might1  be  sanctified  for  the  good  of  the 
country. 

But  I  am  happy  to  avail  myself  of  this,  and  of  all 
opportunities,  to  do  justice  to  the  name  of  General 
Taylor.  He  turned  out  a  very  different  man  from 
what  his  friends  or  his  foes  supposed  him  to  be.  I  be 
lieve  he  desired  freedom  for  all  the  territories;  and, 
could  he  have  been  permitted  to  carry  out  his  own 
plans,  he  would  have  secured  not  only  the  freedom  of 
the  territories,  but  would  also  have  consummated  all 


the  great  national  measures  of  the  party  that  brought 
him  into  power.  JMr.  Clay  threw  the  first  stumbling- 
block  in  his  way,  by  his  compromise  scheme.  This, 
alone,  might  have  been  surmounted.  But  Mr.  Web 
ster's  apostasy,  on  the  seventh  of  March,  turned  the 
tide  of  battle.  It  broke  up  General  Taylor's  phalanx, 
botb  north  and  south.  It  roused  the  drooping  and 
just  yielding  spirits  of  the  slave  power  to  frantic  exer 
tion.  An  enemy  on  the  field  General  Taylor  was  al 
ways  ready  to  meet  ;  but  he  was  not  prepared  for 
treachery  in  his  own  camp.  Still,  he  maintained  his 
ground  resolutely,  until  struck  down  by  the  power  that 
conquers  the  conquerors.  There  are  many  who  be 
lieve  it  was  Mr.  Webster's  perfidy,  with  the  nameless 
labors  and  anxieties  that  came  in  its  train,  which 
caused  General  Taylor's  death.  It  remains  to  be  seen 
whether  the  political  Macbeth  shall  succeed  to  the 
IVinquo  he  spirited  away,  though  all  the  "weird" 
brethren  of  the  slave  mart  and  of  the  "  Union  and 
Safety  Committees"  still  tempt  him  onward  by  their 
incantations. 

But  it  was  under  the  circumstances  of  General  Tay 
lor's  nomination,  and  not  of  his  death,  that  a  portion 
of  the  Free  Soilers  parted  company  with  the  Whigs; 
as  another  portion  did  with  the  Democrats,  because  of 
General  Cass's  avowed  subserviency  to  the  south, —  and 
the  conduct  of  all  men  is  to  be  judged  by  the  circum 
stances  contemporary  with  their  acts,  and  not  subse 
quent  to  them. 

If.  however,  there  are  those  who  judge  of  motives 
by  results,  this  certainly  can  be  said  in  vindication  of 
the  Free  Soil  party,  that  the  now  acting  President  of  the 
United  States,  who  came  in  on  General  Taylor's  ticket, 
and  is  now  completing  his  presidential  term,  has  done 
more  for  slavery  than  the  Free  Soil  party  ever  pre 
dicted  or  feared  would  or  could  be  done  by  the  candi 
dates  whom  they  opposed.  Even  now,  when  the  third 


548 

year  of  the  presidential  term  is  but  half  spent,  the 
Whig  administration,  aided  by  many  leaders  in  the 
Whig  party,  is  carrying  out,  with  a  relentless  hand,  and 
a  more  relentless  heart,  worse  pro-slavery  measures 
than  the  Free  Soil  party  ever  charged  upon  them 
during  the  canvass,  or  ever  believed  or  conceived  they 
could  commit. 

Such  was  the  position  of  affairs  in  Massachusetts  in 
1848,  when,  almost  for  the  first  time  within  the  mem 
ory  of  man,  the  Whigs  failed,  at  the  polls,  to  elect 
electors  of  President  and  Vice  President. 

Let  us  dwell  for  a  moment  on  that  crisis.  It  was 
during  the  canvass  of  1848  that  the  Whigs  became  so 
amorous  towards  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Free  Soil 
party.  No  knight-errant  ever  protested  more  fidelity, 
or  vowed  to  do  more  valorous  deeds  in  his  mistress' 
cause.  Than  some  of  them,  no  dove  ever  cooed  with 
a  sweeter  gurgle.  Than  others,  no  stag  ever  offended 
with  a  ranker  breath.  They  wooed  them  by  daylight, 
by  moonlight,  and  by  torchlight.  They  swore  belief 
not  only  in  all  the  Free  Soil  scriptures,  but  in  the  tra 
ditions  of  its  rabbins.  The  Ordinance  of  '87  they 
loved  ;  the  Wilmot  proviso  they  loved  better ;  and 
would  the  coy  damsel  of  Free  Soilism  but  consent  to 
the  affiance,  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia  should  gladden  the  espousals.  Every  Whig 
rally,  from  ward  and  school  district  meetings  to  mon 
ster  mass  meetings,  resounded  with  Mr.  Webster's  slogan, 
or  war-cry,  "  No  more  slave  states  !  No  more  slave  rep 
resentation  in  the  Congress  of  the  United  States !  " 
The  Boston  Daily  Advertiser,  the  Courier,  and  the 
Journal,  which  are  now  south  of  South  Carolina,  in 
the  impiety  of  the  grounds  on  which  they  defend  the 
wrongs  and  the  aggressions  of  slavery,  and  shout  on 
slave  hunts  over  Pilgrim  burial  grounds,  —  all  gave 
back  the  cry,  with  three  times  three,  "  No  more  slave 
states  !  No  more  slave  representation  in  the  Congress 


M9 

of  the  United  States !  "  At  all  their  conventions,  the 
Whigs  "  resolved  and  re-resolved,"  and  —  but  I  hope  \ve 
may  not  be  compelled  to  finish  the  line.  You  were 
told  there  was  no  more  need  of  a  Free  Soil  party  in 
Massachusetts  than  of  two  suns  in  the  heavens.  The 
Whigs  were  the  true  Free  Soilers  ;  they  held  Free 
Soilism  as  a  hereditament,  or  as  an  heir-loom  long 
possessed  by  the  ancient  family  of  the  Whigs.  Even 
Mr.  Webster,  who  had  very  much  withdrawn  from 
public  gaze  after  the  Philadelphia  convention,  and  who, 
like  Achilles,  sat  "sulking  in  his  tent"  and  musing 
over  the  lost  Briseis  of  a  nomination,  was  at  last 
tempted,  by  a  succession  of  brilliant  retaining  fees,  to 
come  forth  and  reason  with  these  recusant  and  contu 
macious  Free  Soilers  face  to  face.  And  what  did  he 
say  ?  Addressing  himself  distinctively  to  Free  Soilers, 
he  said,  "  If,  my  friends,  the  term  '  Free  Soil  '  party, 
or  '  Free  Soil '  men,  is  meant  to  designate  one  who  has 
been  fixed,  unalterable,  to-day,  yesterday,  and  for  some 
time  past,  in  opposition  to  slavery  extension,  then  I 
may  claim  to  be,  and  may  hold  myself,  as  good  a  Free 
Soil  man  as  any  member  of  that  Buffalo  convention. 
I  pray  to  know  where  is  their  soil  freer  than  that  on 
which  I  have  stood  ?  I  pray  to  know  what  words 
they  can  use,  or  can  dictate  to  me,  freer  than  those 
which  have  dwelt  upon  my  lips.  I  pray  to  know  with 
what  feelings  they  can  inspire  my  breast  more  resolute 
and  firm  in  resisting  slavery  EXTENSION  OR  ENCROACH 
MENT  than  have  inhabited  my  bosom  since  the  first 
time  I  opened  my  mouth  in  public  life." 

These,  gentlemen,  were  his  words,  spoken  at  Marsh- 
field,  on  the  first  day  of  September,  1848.  If  he 
were  here  to-day  to  address  you,  could  he  speak  any 
words  more  grateful  to  your  ears  ?  If  only  truth  and 
a  heart  were  in  that  language,  could  he  speak  any  thing 
better  ? 

It  was  by  such  false  pretences  as  these  that  thou- 


550 

sands,  and  I  doubt  not  tens  of  thousands,  of  men 
wholly  penetrated  and  imbued  with  Free  Soil  princi 
ples,  were  kept  in  the  Whig  ranks.  I  was  one  of  them. 
I  had  faith  in  men  ;  and  I  have  it  still,  —  with  im 
portant  exceptions  however.  The  needle  points  to 
the  pole  ;  but  if  you  bring  a  huge  black  mass  of  pig 
iron  and  place  by  its  side,  it  trembles,  yet  deviates, 
like  a  man  struggling  to  be  virtuous  before  overwhelm 
ing  temptations.  Remove  the  disturbing  force,  and  it 
returns  to  its  fidelity.  So,  when  the  next  presidential 
election  is  over,  I  believe  the  great  body  of  the  rank  and 
file  of  the  Whig"  party  in  Massachusetts  will  return  to 
their  duty ;  for  I  venture  to  say,  that  if  the  Whigs  of 
Massachusetts,  in  November,  1848,  could  have  foreseen 
the  present  position  of  their  party,  and  the  demorali 
zation  which  its  leaders  have  been  able  to  work  in  it, 
not  one  third  of  them,  no,  not  one  quarter  of  them, 
could  have  been  induced  to  vote  the  ticket  that  elected 
Mr.  Fillmore,  brought  in  the  present  cabinet,  and 
brought  on  the  present  disastrous  policy. 

But,  gentlemen,  I  am  occupying  too  much  of  your 
time.  I  will  add  but  a  few  more  words.  I  said  the 
address  and  resolutions  of  the  Whig  State  Convention, 
held  at  Springfield,  last  week,  brought  me  here.  I  have 
read  them  with  profound  sorrow.  It  was  the  first  Whig 
convention  that  ever  met  in  Massachusetts  that  did 
not  at  least  put  forth  some  noble  doctrines  in  favor  of 
freedom,  whether  they  meant  to  stand  by  them  or  not. 
Yes,  even  the  convention  of  1850,  —  only  one  year 
ago,  —  passed  the  following  :  — 

"Resolved,  That  Massachusetts  avows  her  unalterable  de 
termination  to  maintain  all  the  principles  and  purposes  she  has 
in  times  past  affirmed  and  reaffirmed,  in  relation  to  the  ex 
tension  of  slavery." 

And  yet  the  late  convention,  the  first  one  that  has 
met  since  the  resolution  which  I  have  just  read  was 


551 

adopted,  has  endorsed  the  present  administration,  which 
has  done  more  to  corrupt  and  deaden  public  sentiment 
at  the  north,  as  to  the  wrongs  of  slavery  to  the  en 
slaved,  and  its  injury  to  the  free,  and  to  aggrandize  the 
pro-slavery  south,  and  foster  and  encourage,  ay,  and 
reward  its  aggressions; — has  done  more,  I  say,  than 
any  other  administration  that  ever  existed  under  this 
government.  History  will  bear  me  out  in  this  state 
ment.  Yet,  at  this  crisis  in  human  affairs,  the  one 
idea,  the  master  purpose  of  the  address  and  resolutions 
of  that  convention,  seems  to  have  been,  to  disparage 
and  depreciate  the  great,  eternal  principles  of  freedom, 
and  to  bring  odium  and  contempt  upon  the  only  party 
now  organized  for  their  support. 

Gentlemen,  the  Whig  leaders,  in  this  respect,  and  in 
regard  to  this  most  important  and  paramount  attribute 
of  the  Whig  party,  have  lurched  and  lurched  round, 
until  they  have  got  into  the  very  trough  of  the  pro- 
slavery  sea.  Its  members,  I  admit,  are  free  to  follow 
them  to  their  ruin,  if  they  will ;  but  free,  too,  I  thank 
God.  to  go  on  in  their  old  course,  steering  for  the  haven 
of  honor  and  liberty.  I  give  the  great  majority  even 
of  the  Whig  leaders  the  credit  of  having  yielded  to 
this  pressure  reluctantly,  and  under  what  they  deemed 
a  sort  of  political  duress;  for,  gentlemen,  a  new  and 
most  alarming  fact  in  the  history  of  the  Whig  party  of 
this  country  has  been  developed  within  the  last  two 
years.  It  is  this:  formerly,  and  universally,  the  Whig 
administration  was  supposed  to  be  chosen  to  carry  out 
the  views  of  the  Whig  party  ;  but  the  present  admin 
istration,  having  abandoned  the  grounds  on  which  it 
obtained  power,  and  having,  for  its  own  purposes, 
taken  new  grounds,  now  demands  of  the  Whig  party 
to  carry  out,  —  not  the  old  policy  of  the  Whigs,  but 
the  new  policy  of  the  administration. 

Fellow-citizens,  could  Mr.  Fillmore  by  any  possi 
bility  have  been  elected,  in  1848 ;  could  he  have 


552 

got  so  many  as  ten  thousand  votes  among  all  the 
Whigs  of  the  Northern  States,  had  his  present  attitude 
on  the  subject  of  slavery  been  foreseen  ? 

Was  there  ever  an  hour  when  Mr.  Webster  could 
have  obtained  one  tenth  part,  —  one  fiftieth  part,  —  of 
the  votes  of  the  Massachusetts  legislature  for  the  office 
of  senator,  had  the  curtain  of  the  future  been  lifted 
up,  and  his  present  position  been  revealed  ?  You 
know  there  never  was.  But,  during  the  year  1850, 
without  any  initial  change,  or  symptom  of  a  change,  on 
the  part  of  northern  Whigs,  the  administration,  prompt 
ed  by  its  own  purposes,  or  yielding  from  its  own  weak 
ness,  faced  square  about ;  and  ever  since  that  time  it 
has  been  striving,  by  all  the  lures  of  patronage  and 
the  terrors  of  denunciation,  to  force  the  Whigs  of  the 
north  on  to  a  kind  of  political  turn-table,  like  those 
railroad  turn-tables  you  see  at  a  car-house,  so  that  the 
whole  party,  too,  should  be  faced  square  about,  made 
to  retrace  their  course,  by  going  backward  among  the 
same  people  who  had  seen  them  go  forward,  shouting 
down  all  they  had  shouted  up,  and  forswearing  all  the 
glorious  doctrines  of  liberty  to  which  the  whole  world 
had  heard  them  swear.  Gentlemen,  if,  in  this  stress 
of  circumstances,  any  body  asks  me,  "  Where  shall  I 
go  ?  "  my  reply  is,  Don't  get  on  to  that  political  turn 
table  which  the  administration  has  prepared  for  the 
Whig  party,  and  not  the  Whig  party  for  the  adminis 
tration  ;  for  it  will  carry  your  country  to  ruin,  and 
yourself  to  dishonor. 

During  the  canvass  last  autumn  for  a  member  of 
Congress  for  the  eighth  district,  when,  as  you  all  know, 
there  were  such  "godlike  "  exertions  made  against  my 
election,  I  was  asked,  as  a  test  question,  by  numbers 
of  most  respectable  members  of  the  Whig  party, 
what  I  thought  of  the  Free  Soil  party,  and  their  pro 
posed  coalition  at  that  time.  I  replied  to  them  in  the 
following  words,  and  my  answer  is  now  on  record  in 


553 

the  hands  of  my  constituents :  "  I  say,  as  I  have 
often  said,  that,  if  the  Whigs  will  live  up  to  their  pro 
fessions  a  hundred  times  made,  I  see  no  reason  or 
warrant  for  separate  organizations  or  coalitions.  But 
if  the  great  body  of  the  Whigs  mean  to  belie  all  their 
professions,  and  to  persecute  and  punish  all  who  remain 
faithful  to  the  lessons  which  the  Whig  party  itself  has 
been  teaching  so  strenuously  for  so  many  years,  then 
what  true  Whig  can  blame  any  man  for  attempting  to 
carry  out  what  the  Whigs  themselves  have  promised  to 
do,  but  have  abandoned  ?  " 

But  the  Massachusetts  Whig  State  Convention  at  that 
time  passed  the  most  pointed  and  emphatic  resolution, 
affirming  anew  what  they  avowed  themselves  to  have 
affirmed  and  reaffirmed  so  often  before,  on  the  subject 
of  slavery.  I  reposed  trust  in  their  honesty  ;  I  be 
lieved  in  their  veracity  ;  and,  as  a  consequence  of  my 
faith,  I  voted  the  entire  Whig  state  ticket.  Having 
read  their  last  address  and  resolutions,  I  must  now  say, 
that  if  they  desire  any  more  votes  of  mine,  they  must 
revive  my  faith  by  some  new  evidence  of  their  good 
works. 

Let  me  advert  to  a  few  of  the  more  salient  points  in 
that  address.  It  labors  to  sustain  a  charge  of  coalition 
against  the  Free  Soil  party.  Well,  before  I  either 
approve  or  condemn  a  "  coalition,"  I  must  know  by 
whom,  and  for  what  purpose,  it  was  formed.  A  coali 
tion,  I  suppose,  like  other  acts,  must  be  right  or  wrong 
according  to  the  motive  that  prompts  it. 

But  it  is  said  the  Free  Soil  party  formed  an  alliance 
with  those  who,  on  some  important  points,  had  no 
sympathy  with  it.  And  where  is  this  said  ?  Why, 
in  a  land  where  our  revolutionary  fathers,  fighting  for 
freedom  and  for  a  republic,  formed  an  alliance  or  coa 
lition  with  monarchical  and  despotic  France,  and  with 
monarchical  and  despotic  Spain.  What  were  the 
points  of  resemblance  or  unison  between  the  American 
47 


554 

Confederation  on  the  one  side,  and  France  or  Spain 
on  the  other  ?  In  government,  in  policy,  in  manners, 
in  education,  in  religion,  nothing  could  have  been  more 
different.  In  what  did  they  agree  ?  In  hostility  to 
Great  Britain  alone  ;  but  not  in  a  single  one  of  the  rea 
sons  for  that  hostility,  nor  in  but  one  of  the  objects  to 
be  accomplished  by  it,  —  the  humiliation  of  a  haughty 
and  overbearing  power. 

At  the  same  time,  Great  Britain  formed  coalitions 
with  the  North  American  savages,  to  extinguish  the 
rising  dawn  of  freedom.  And  in  this  they  have  been 
too  faithfully  imitated  by  the  old  hunkers  of  both  par 
ties  ;  —  imitated,  I  say,  not  only  in  the  object  and 
spirit  of  the  coalition,  but  in  the  weapons  with  which 
the  warfare  is  waged.  Yes,  fellow-citizens ;  for  there 
is  an  attempt,  and  that  attempt  is  to  be  followed  up, 
to  overwhelm  the  Free  Soil  party  by  obloquy  and  de 
nunciation.  There  is  to  be  a  cry  of  "bargain  and 
corruption  "  to  put  down  the  Free  Soil  party,  just  as 
the  administration  of  Mr.  John  Q,uincy  Adams  was  put 
down  by  the  same  cry.  Who  now  believes  any  thing 
about  the  charge  of  "  bargain  and  corruption  "  against 
Mr.  Adams,  —  except  that  it  was  a  villanous  charge  ? 
I  believe  the  same  charge  against  the  Free  Soil  party 
will  have  come,  twenty  years  hence,  to  the  same  re 
sult,  —  that  of  conferring  honor  upon  its  object,  and 
infamy  upon  its  authors. 

But  it  is  said  the  Free  Soil  party  have  seized  the 
offices  and  emoluments  of  the  state.  I  was  absent 
last  January  at  the  time  of  the  organization  of  the 
state  government ;  but  I  have  heard  that  those  who 
were  distinctively  called  Free  Soilers  received  only 
the  office  of  secretary  of  state,  and  president  of  the 
senate,  and  two  or  three  out  of  the  nine  councillors ;  — 
all  of  them  nearly  or  quite  without  patronage.  I  sup 
pose  all  their  emoluments  combined  would  not  equal 
what  is  received  by  the  Boston  postmaster,  or  the  col- 


555 

lector  of  the  Boston  port.  Vast  "  ways  and  means  " 
these  for  the  corruption  of  the  people  !  The  whole  of 
them  would  not  suffice  a  cabinet  officer  for  a  bonne 
bouche  or  a  tidbit. 

And  now  I  suggest  a  further  point.  Was  there 
a  single  Free  Soiler  who  received  an  office  last  winter, 
on  what  is  called  the  division  of  the  spoils,  which  the 
people,  when  they  voted  for  him  at  the  polls,  did  not 
desire  and  mean  that  he  should  receive  ? 

Now,  I  need  not  say  that  when  men  conspire  or 
coalesce  for  a  selfish  purpose,  whether  that  purpose  be 
office,  or  emolument,  or  the  profits  of  trade,  or  the 
increase  of  dividends,  and  especially  if  they  sacrifice 
great  principles  of  public  utility,  or  morality,  or  re 
ligion,  for.  the  selfish  end,  I  condemn  the  deed  with 
my  whole  heart.  So  when  representatives,  or  agents 
of  any  kind,  are  elected  or  appointed  for  special  pur 
poses,  and  by  votes  or  influences  without  which  they 
could  not  have  obtained  their  posts,  and  then,  for  their 
own  ambitious  or  mercenary  objects,  they  coalesce  to 
defeat  the  will  of  their  constituents,  any  severity  of 
language,  in  holding  up  their  conduct  to  reprobation, 
may  be  used  with  my  full  consent.  Precisely  of  this 
nature  was  the  coalition  between  Mr.  Webster  and 
General  Cass,  to  carry  through  the  compromise  meas 
ures  and  the  Fugitive  Slave  bill.  Both  were  agents, 
both  betrayed  and  violated  the  will  of  their  principals. 
Could  Mr.  Eliot,  of  Boston,  have  been  elected  to  Con 
gress,  had  he  avowed  his  intention  to  vote  for  the  Fu 
gitive  Slave  bill  ?  Every  body  knows  he  could  not. 
Yet  he  coalesced  with  the  secessionists,  Messrs.  Cl ing- 
man  and  Venable,  of  North  Carolina,  and  with  the 
whole  South  Carolina  disunion  delegation,  in  voting 
for  the  Fugitive  Slave  bill.  For  Massachusetts,  it  was 
said  that  the  passage  of  that  bill  would  raise  the  price 
of  manufacturing  stocks ;  as,  for  North  Carolina,  it 
would  increase  the  profits  of  negro-breeding.  Here, 


556 

then,  are  cases  of  coalition  between  persons  mutually 
hostile  on  other  points  ;  and  all  the  northern  members 
engaged  in  it,  not  to  carry  out,  but  to  defeat,  the  will 
of  their  constituents. 

But  the  coalition  entered  into  by  the  Free  Soil  party 
in  this  state,  last  year,  was  a  coalition  planned,  formed, 
sanctioned,  and  executed,  as  far  as  they  could  execute 
it,  by  the  people  themselves,  acting  in  their  original, 
sovereign  capacity,  at  their  primary  meetings,  and  at 
the  ballot  box.  It  was  not  originated  by  representa 
tives  against  the  wishes  of  their  constituents  ;  but  the 
representatives  carried  out  what  the  people  who  chose 
them  willed.  What  conclusively  proves  this  to  be  so 
is,  that  the  people  who  elected  these  representatives 
were  satisfied  with  what  they  did  ;  and,  since  the  work 
has  been  done,  have  shown  their  approval  of  it  in  every 
practicable  way. 

There  may  be  wrong  motives  prompting  to  the  most 
useful  and  beneficent  acts,  as  good  motives  sometimes 
lead  to  the  most  pernicious  conduct  ;  but  I  am  speak 
ing  of  these  acts  of  alleged  coalition  which  were  insti 
tuted  by  the  people  themselves,  discussed  in  their 
hearing  at  all  the  primary  meetings  and  all  the  con 
ventions,  and  afterwards  ratified  by  their  votes  ;  and 
I  say,  to  compare  such  a  coalition  with  that  which  took 
place  between  Whigs  and  Democrats  in  the  Senate  of 
the  United  States,  and  between  unionists  and  disunion- 
ists,  slave-breeders  and  manufacturers,  in  the  House,  to 
carry  through  the  compromise  bills  and  the  Fugitive 
Slave  bill,  seems  to  me  illogical,  preposterous,  and  ab 
surd.  But  it  is  said  that  the  bargain  in  the  one  case 
was  open  and  public  ;  and  that  its  terms  were  reduced 
to  writing,  like  a  bond  or  covenant  between  indi 
viduals.  Is  it  any  the  worse  for  that?  Had  you  not 
as  lief  have  an  open  bargain  that  you  can  see,  as  secret 
ones,  like  the  Texas  stock  bargains,  that  you  cannot 
see  ?  I  suppose  that  coalitions  can  be  implied  and 


557 

understood,  as  well  as  contracts.  Why,  have  you  not 
seen  such  an  implied  coalition  carried  out  in  Faneuil 
Hal!  \v i thin  a  year,  when  the  Hon.  Benjamin  F.  Hal- 
lett  led  on  his  cohorts,  and  the  Hon.  Rufus  Choate 
advanced  his  forces  to  join  them  ;  when  Mr.  Benjamin 
R.  Curtis  joined  hands  with  Mr.  David  Henshuw,  \vlu> 
was  present  by  letter,  if  not  in  person,  —  honorable 
men  all,  —  and  formed  one  of  the  most  loving  and 
harmonious  coalitions  out  of  as  heterogeneous  and 
repulsive  elements  as  ever  chaos  jumbled  together,  — 
a  coalition  not  to  lift  the  bleeding  form  of  liberty  up, 
but  to  crush  it  down. 

The  coalition  entered  into  by  the  Free  Soilers  cer 
tainly  did  one  thing  which  would  atone  for  many 
errors.  They  elected  Mr.  Charles  Sumner  to  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States.  And  I  cannot  believe 
there  is  a  man  to  be  found  in  any  party  so  shameless 
and  depraved  as  to  charge  Mr.  Sumner  with  any  dis 
honorable  coalescing,  or  with  being  tainted,  in  a  hair 
of  his  head  or  in  a  filament  of  his  garments,  with 
'•  bargain  and  corruption."  Mr.  Sumner  was  not 
elected  on  any  principle  of  availability,  but  on  the 
principle  of  "Detur  digniori" —  "Let  it  be  given  to 
the  most  worthy."  His  lofty  pedestal  is  too  firm  to  be 
shaken  by  any  such  accusation.  His  character  is  not. 
to  be  affected  by  any  office  which  he  shall  hold,  but 
only  by  what  he  does,  whether  in  office  or  out  of  it. 

While  defending,  in  this  way,  the  principle  of  coa 
litions,  when  formed  by  the  people  themselves,  no 
one,  of  course,  could  be  understood  as  pledging  him 
self  to  vote  for  all  their  measures.  This  would  be 
the  old  and  wicked  partisan  principle  of  standing  by 
our  party,  right  or  wrong.  I  am  also  free  to  say  that 
there  is,  in  my  opinion,  aprimafacie  objection  against 
coalitions  ;  but  I  cannot  doubt  the  existence  of  cases 
where  they  are  not  only  justifiable,  but  laudable.  I  lay 
down  this  great  principle  :  I  think  the  Free  Soil  party 
47* 


558 

should  act  at  any  time,  on  any  point,  with  any  party 
through  whom  they  can  help  the  cause  of  freedom. 

The  Whig  address  remarks  as  follows  :  "  We  arc 
DOW  able  to  say,  after  the  experience  of  nearly  a 
twelvemonth,  that  it,  [the  administration,]  has  fully 
earned  the  confidence  which  we  awarded  to  it  in 
advance.  The  great  interests  of  the  country  have 
been  faithfully  cared  for  !  "  I  ask,  What  great  inter 
ests  of  the  country  have  been  faithfully  cared  for  ? 
What  interest  of  the  Whig  party,  assuming  to  be  the 
country,  has  been  faithfully  cared  for  ?  Have  we  got 
a  tariff?  Mr.  Webster  dissipated  all  chance  of  that 
for  the  present,  and  I  fear  for  years  to  come,  when  he 
taught  the  south  to  threaten  and  prevail.  Have  we 
any  river  and  harbor  appropriations  ?  Alas  !  northern 
capital  and  northern  lives  still  go  to  the  bottom  on 
our  western  waters.  Is  the  financial  policy  of  the 
country  changed  ?  Let  the  condition  of  the  money 
market  for  the  last  few  months,  and  also  its  prospective 
condition,  grinding  the  middle  classes  of  tradesmen 
and  manufacturers  as  between  the  upper  and  nether 
millstone,  answer  this  question.  A  reform  in  all  these 
particulars  would  doubtless  have  been  affected  but  for 
Mr.  Webster's  apostasy  ;  but  where  are  these  reforms 
now  ?  If  they  exist  at  all,  they  exist  in  some  indefi 
nite  future.  What  interest  of  the  country,  then,  has 
been  faithfully  cared  for  or  secured  ?  Not  one  ! 
Not  one  !  The  most  prominent  member  of  the  ad 
ministration  has  been  engaged  in  carrying  out  the 
policy  of  the  south,  —  in  visiting  southern  cities  to 
pander  to  the  slave  power,  and  northern  cities  to 
stifle  the  spirit  of  freedom.  Two  armed  expeditions 
have  been  fitted  out  in  our  own  ports  against  the 
territory  of  a  government  with  which  we  are  at  peace, 
resulting  in  the  loss  of  hundreds  of  lives,  while  the 
President  and  his  first  secretary  have  been  spending 
their  time  gayly  at  watering-places.  When  some  of 


559 

our  citizens,  a  few  years  ago,  afforded  some  assistance 
to  the  "  Liberals  "  of  Canada,  in  favor  of  a  movement 
which  Canadians  themselves  had  already  set  on  foot, 
the  government  promptly  and  energetically  interfered. 
But  Canada  and  Cuba  are  wider  apart  politically  than 
they  are  geographically.  Slavery  makes  the  difference 
between  them. 

The  only  valorous  exploit  of  this  administration 
was  the  issuing  of  a  proclamation,  when  one  southern 
slave,  from  among  three  millions,  escaped  from  the 
house  of  bondage,  and  found  that  protection  under 
the  British  ensign  which  was  denied  to  him  by  the 
American  flag,  and  that  right  to  a  trial  by  jury  under 
a  monarchy  which  was  denied  to  him  by  a  republic. 
Or,  if  any  other  act  should  be  added  to  the  preceding, 
it  was  the  President's  letter  to  Dr.  Collins,  of  Georgia, 
offering  the  use  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United 
States  to  catch  one  poor  white  woman,  Ellen  Crafts, 
and  her  husband,  and  return  them  to  bondage. 

In  another  passage  of  the  Whig  address  all  disguise 
is  cast  off,  and  it  is  openly  declared,  that  the  giving 
of  an  extra  slave  state  to  Texas,  with  territory  enough 
for  half  a  dozen  more  as  large  as  Massachusetts,  and 
ten  millions  of  dollars  in  addition  to  that,  and  the 
statutory  permission  that  slavery  may  go  into  New 
Mexico  and  Utah,  and  even  that  abhorred  enactment, 
the  Fugitive  Slave  law,  are  only  "  factitious  and  im 
aginary  "  grounds  of  complaint.  The  Free  Soil  party 
is  condemned  because  it  takes  any  notice  of  such 
"factitious  and  imaginary"  causes.  A  three-penny 
tax  on  tea  was  a  real  grievance,  —  one  fit  to  be  resisted 
unto  blood,  to  be  historically  recorded,  and  to  which 
we  are  not  ashamed  to  refer  when  descanting  upon 
the  honor  of  our  fathers.  But  such  largesses  to  slavery 
as  kings  could  not  afford  to  give,  and  the  robbery  of 
an  entire  race  of  all  its  rights,  —  yes.  and  with  au 
thority,  too,  to  make  us  help  commit  the  robbery, — 


560 

these  are  "factitious  and  imaginary"  causes  of  dissat 
isfaction.  Men  of  Massachusetts !  moral  and  religious 
men  !  lovers  of  freedom  and  of  your  country,  were 
you  prepared  for  this  ? 

But  the  address  goes  still  further.  It  goes  into  an 
elaborate  palliation  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  itself. 
It  first  attempts  to  shift  the  question  by  asking  the 
Free  Soilers  what  they  would  do  with  regard  to  the 
constitutional  provision  respecting  escaped  slaves.  The 
views  of  the  Free  Soil  party  on  this  point,  and  their 
purpose  of  fidelity  to  the  constitution,  have  been  set 
forth  a  hundred  times.  In  further  answer,  therefore, 
to  this  question,  I  trust  it  is  only  necessary  to  remark, 
that  the  Free  Soil  party  will  do  what  they  say,  and 
not  pass  ten  long  years  in  asserting,  and  protesting, 
and  resolving,  and  calling  Earth  and  Heaven  to  witness 
their  devotion  to  Freedom,  and  then  disavow  all  they 
had  ever  avowed,  and  forswear  their  oaths. 

Let  me  read  to  you  the  disparaging  and  contemptu 
ous  remark  of  the  address  on  that  great  palladium  of 
human  liberty,  the  trial  by  jury.  "Is  nothing  meant," 
it  gravely  asks,  "but  the  substitution  of  the  verdict 
of  a  jury  for  the  decision  of  a  judge."  Nothing  but 
—  what?  "The  verdict  of  a  jury  for  the  decision 
of  a  judge,"  that  is,  of  a  commissioner!  And  are  the 
persons  who  prepared  that  address  so  nearly  stone 
blind  as  not  to  recognize  the  infinite  difference  be 
tween  the  verdict  of  a  jury  and  the  decisions  of  such 
commissioners  as  Messrs.  Ingraham,  Smith,  and  Nel 
son  ?  Ingraham,  of  Philadelphia,  sent  a  man  into 
bondage  whom  the  alleged  claimant  refused  to  receive 
as  soon  as  he  saw  him,  knowing  that  all  his  family, 
and  all  his  slaves,  and  all  his  neighbors  would  see  that 
he  had  no  right  to  him.  Smith,  of  Buffalo,  gave  a 
certificate  to  carry  Daniel  into  slavery,  when  not  a 
single  item,  or  particle,  or  tittle  of  legal  and  admissi 
ble  evidence  was  before  him  as  proof,  as  was  after- 


561 

wards  shown  by  Judge  Conkling,  of  the  United  States 
court.  Nelson,  of  New  York,  forced  the  facts  in 
Bold  ing's  case  to  bring  them  within  the  law  which 
he  himself  had  laid  down,  as  much  as  ever  a  fraudu 
lent  book-keeper  forced  balances  to  cover  an  embezzle 
ment.  Sims,  instead  of  having  common-law  notice 
and  time  to  send  for  evidence,  was  seized  at  night  on 
a  false  and  trumped-up  charge  of  stealing.  Daniel 
was  knocked  down  by  the  claimant's  agent  with  a 
club,  tumbled  and  tortured  upon  a  hot  stove,  his  scalp 
torn  open,  and  then  compelled  to  go  to  trial,  while,  as 
described  by  an  eye  witness,  "  he  sat  dozing,  unable 
to  talk  with  his  counsel,  with  the  blood  slowly  oozing 
out  of  his  mouth  and  nostrils."  Hamlet,  Long,  and 
Bolding  were  sprung  upon  as  remorselessly  as  a  tiger 
springs  upon  a  lamb,  and  carried  to  trial  without  being 
allowed  to  go  to  their  respective  homes  to  bid  faqfwell 
to  their  families.  An  alleged  slave  has  lately  been 
taken  from  Pennsylvania  who  was  seized  in  the  night, 
tried  in  the  night,  and  carried  away  on  the  same 
night,  without  any  opportunity  for  preparation,  for 
counsel,  or  for  defence.  The  kidnapper,  Alberti,  now 
lies  in  a  Pennsylvania  prison  for  carrying  away  a 
mother  and  her  child  ;  but  the  mother  and  the  child 
are  now  groaning  under  the  lash  of  a  southern  task 
master.  Had  this  villain,  Alberti,  and  his  accomplices 
been  detected  while  the  victims  were  still  in  their 
hands,  I  suppose  he  would  have  carried  them  before 
Mr.  Commissioner  Ingraham,  and  had  the  wrong  le 
gally  rectified,  —  the  blackness  of  the  crime  judicially 
washed  white.  These  are  but  specimens  of  what  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law  has  already  done,  before  the  public 
mind  has  become  familiarized  with  its  brutalities,  and 
while  there  is  yet  some  sensibility  to  the  claims  of 
justice  and  mercy  left  among  us.  And  yet  the  writer 
of  this  address  and  the  committee  that  offered  it,  ask 
us  whether  all  we  mean  is  the  substitution  of  the  ver- 


562 

diet  of  a  jury  for  the  decision  of  a  commissioner.  I 
answer,  that  this  difference  which  they  so  be-little  and 
disparage  will  often  be  all  the  difference  between  free 
dom  and  bondage,  between  life  and  death,  between 
honor  and  infamy,  between  happiness  and  perdition. 

And  now,  fellow-citizens,  if,  in  addition  to  having 
our  northern  freemen  kidnapped  in  southern  ports,  and 
imprisoned  and  sold  into  bondage  ;  if,  in  addition  to 
fighting  for  foreign  territory  to  be  added  to  the  domain 
of  slavery ;  if,  in  addition  to  being  taxed,  in  sums  of 
millions  and  tens  of  millions,  to  fortify  the  slave 
power;  —  if,  in  addition  to  all  this,  we  are  to  be  de 
prived  and  defrauded  of  that  noble  and  venerable  insti 
tution,  the  trial  by  jury,  —  an  institution  sanctified  by 
the  blood  of  martyrs,  hallowed  by  the  prayers  of 
sainted  patriots,  held  sacred  by  all  good  men,  and 
taught  to  their  children  like  the  living  oracles  of  God  ;  — 
if  this  attempt  is  to  be  made,  as  the  late  Whig  address 
foreshadows,  —  then  I  say,  a  more  flagrant  case  of  apos 
tasy  is  nowhere  to  be  found  on  the  records  of  any  his 
tory,  sacred  or  profane,  since  Satan  broke  into  paradise 
and  Websterized  our  first  parents. 

I  shall  advert  to  but  one  more  point  in  the  address. 
It  speaks  of  the  "  pitiable  humbug  of  ballot  envelopes." 
Now,  gentlemen,  I  may  be  all  wrong  on  this  subject. 
My  instincts,  reason,  judgment,  conscience,  may  all 
mislead  ;  but  from  the  first  time,  now  years  ago, 
when  I  heard  this  subject  broached,  my  instincts,  rea 
son,  judgment,  conscience,  have  all  been  in  its  favor. 
Why,  fellow-citizens,  the  ballot  is  worse  than  useless, 
if  it  be  not  FREE  !  Better  be  debarred  from  the  privi 
lege  of  voting  at  all,  than  to  be  mocked  with  the  form, 
while  cheated  of  the  substance.  A  southern  slave 
stands  higher,  politically,  than  a  northern  laborer,  if  the 
latter  must  vote  as  his  employer  dictates.  It  may  be 
very  well  for  an  opulent  man,  one  of  vast  fortune,  who 
is  dependent  on  nobody,  and  so  cares  for  nobody,  who 


563 

goes  quarterly  and  takes  his  thonsands  of  dollars  for 
rents  or  dividends ;  it  may  be  very  well  for  him  to 
laugh  at  the  secret  ballot,  and  call  it  a  "  humbug  ;  "  but 
let  us  look  at  the  other  end  of  the  scale.  Let  ns  look 
in  the  thousands  of  day-laborers,  of  workmen  on  cor 
poration  grounds,  of  dependent  clerks,  of  subordinates 
at  custom-houses  and  other  public  offices,  and  so  forth, 
who  have  no  capital  but  their  industry,  no  resources 
but  their  daily  earnings,  who  have  an  aged  mother  or 
dependent  sisters  to  support,  or  a  family  of  children  to 
be  fed,  clothed,  and  educated  ;  who  may  be  turned  out 
even  of  the  humble  tenements  where  they  live,  as 
winter  is  coming  on  ;  who  may  be  refused  promotion 
or  advancement  in  their  work  and  in  their  wages  ;  and 
in  regard  to  some  of  whom  the  wolf  of  hunger  sits 
growling  at  the  door  ;  let  us  look  at  these,  I  say,  and 
then  answer  the  question,  whether  they  ought  not  to 
be  protected  in  voting  according  to  their  judgment  and 
conscience.  The  liberty  of  voting  includes  all  other 
liberties.  The  man  of  independent  circumstances  has 
this  liberty  ;  and  no  man's  circumstances,  not  even  the 
poorest  and  the  humblest,  should  be  so  dependent  as  to 
take  it  away. 

I  do  not  desire  this  secret  ballot  law  for  myself.  I 
like  to  lay  my  ballot  in  the  box,  face  upwards,  looking 
heavenward  ;  looking  the  Paul  Prys  who  hover  round, 
full  in  the  eye  ;  but  I  am  willing  and  glad  to  put  that 
ballot  in  an  envelope,  in  order  to  protect  my  poor  neigh 
bor,  the  bread  of  whose  mouth,  the  shelter  of  whose 
family,  and  the  education  of  whose  children,  may  de 
pend  upon  the  vote  he  gives.  Ay,  I  go  further.  I 
should  think  that  any  high-minded  man,  any  man  hav 
ing  proper  sensibilities  respecting  his  relations  to  his 
social  inferiors,  would  rejoice  in  such  a  law  as  this  ; 
because  it  would  take  away  all  ground  of  accusation 
or  imputation  that  he  would  do  so  unrighteous  and 


564 

dastardly  a  deed  as  to  invade  a  dependant's  right  of 
voting  as  it  might  seem  to  him  good. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  said,  in  one  of  the  Springfield  reso 
lutions,  that  the  last  legislature  cost  the  state  an  extra 
fifty  thousand  dollars.  Whether  it  did  or  not  is  riot 
of  any  very  vast  importance  ;  though  I  confess  I  have 
a  great  respect  for  Poor  Richard's  economy,  and 
would  save  all  that  I  could.  But  does  not  the  very 
mention  of  this  sum  of  fifty  thousand  remind  one  of 
another  sum,  almost  precisely  the  same,  which  was 
spent  last  year  on  one  of  Mr.  Sumner's  predecessors  in 
the  senatorial  office  ?  And  if  it  cost  fifty  thousand 
dollars  for  a  ticket  to  pass  Mr.  Webster  out  of  the  Sen 
ate,  it  was  surely  worth  as  much  for  a  ticket  to  pass 
Mr.  Sumner  in. 

Gentlemen,  I  close  by  remarking  that  it  is  in  view 
of  these  great  questions  of  human  freedom,  —  in  view 
of  the  solemn  responsibility  in  which  we  stand  to  our 
country  and  to  posterity,  that  we  have  assembled  here 
to-day.  May  this  meeting  prove  to  be  a  concentration 
of  rays  of  scattered  light  and  wisdom,  meeting  and 
burning  in  a  focus,  and  then  sending  back  illumination 
and  cheering  to  all  the  parts  of  our  beloved  common 
wealth.  If,  in  my  humble  way,  I  can  do  any  thing  to 
promote  so  glorious  an  object,  my  services  are  at  your 
disposal. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


55V1 

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General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


YB  37532 


